Lord Heseltine

The Right Honourable Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, CH, having been created Baron Heseltine, of Thenford in the County of Northamptonshire, for life--Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Weinstock and the Lord Carrington.

Lord Radice

The Right Honourable Giles Heneage Radice, having been created Baron Radice, of Chester-le-Street in the County of Durham, for life--Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Healey and the Baroness Hayman.

Lord Weinstock: Took the Oath.

Winter Fuel Payments

Lord Ashley of Stoke: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they will reconsider their refusal to extend the winter fuel payment for pensioners to severely disabled people under 60 years of age.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, winter fuel payments were created to ensure that the elderly need not worry about turning up their heating during the cold weather. There are no plans to extend the payments to any groups below the age of 60.

Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I am grateful for that inadequate reply. I warmly welcome the fact that all old age pensioners receive the winter fuel payment. They certainly deserve it. However, is it not bizarre that the Government refuse to give the payment to severely disabled people, when such people are just as vulnerable to the cold, or even more so, than some old age pensioners? To refuse them the payment is both unjust and unfair.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I understand that my noble friend, who has a deservedly high reputation for fighting the corner for disabled people, would want to press for an extension to the payments. However, 50 per cent of those who are fuel poor are pensioners; four per cent of those who are fuel poor are severely disabled. On the figures for extra winter deaths, the number of pensioners who die additionally during the winter months is something like 10 times greater than the number of people aged 0 to 65 who die, including disabled people. So disabled people do not suffer the fuel poverty that pensioners suffer, in part because they have a targeted benefit--the disability living allowance--which is designed precisely to help them to meet heating costs, food costs, laundry costs and the cost of care. I am sorry, but I do not actually believe that my noble friend has the evidence behind him to support his argument.

Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, as the citizens in question are under 60 years of age and therefore not pensioners, will the Government consider introducing a winter fuel benefit, strictly limited to severely disabled people, as heating is normally an essential requirement for that category?

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, forgive me, but I have given a fairly full supplementary answer to my noble friend. I had hoped that I had addressed the point that those under 60 are entitled, particularly if they are severely disabled, to DLA care and DLA mobility allowances, which together come to nearly £90 a week and we hope that disabled people will meet their heating costs out of that.

Lord Rix: My Lords, in spite of the response of the Minister, is she aware that people with a learning disability, particularly those with Down's syndrome, often have circulatory problems and suffer extremely badly from the cold? Does she agree that they would gain enormously if there were some form of winter fuel benefit?

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I accept that a large number of people, not only those who are severely disabled or those with a learning difficulty, but also, for example, families with young children who are on benefit, would gain if there were an additional winter fuel benefit. The point is that pensioners experience fuel poverty and as a result 45,000 of the 49,000 people who died additionally last year during the winter months through winter cold were pensioners. That is why we target the money on those who experience cold the most, on those who have low incomes and on those who have poorly repaired and under-insulated houses.

Lord Addington: My Lords, although the number of severely disabled people who experience cold in the winter is relatively small, does the Minister accept that some form of allowance appears to be necessary to protect and to help that small section of our society?

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, forgive me, because I do not want to sound curt, but I have three times said that there is an additional benefit called disability living allowance. It is worth £90 a week and is designed to meet the extra costs for someone who is disabled. They include heating, diet, laundry and personal care. In addition, perhaps I may add that people under the age of 60 on benefit are also entitled to a £1,000 home insulation grant, which I hope they will take up if they are eligible, and they remain eligible for cold weather payments if the temperatures fall to zero or below.

Lord Renton: My Lords, perhaps I may declare an interest as I have a daughter aged 47 who has been severely disabled since birth, cannot walk and suffers terribly from the cold, whereas here am I, who was 60 years old 33 years ago. So far I have not had to claim the fuel allowance but why cannot I obtain it for my daughter?

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, it would be impertinent of me to say that the noble Lord might claim it for himself and give it to his daughter. The basic situation is that if his daughter--and I understand it to be the case but perhaps the noble Lord will forgive me if I am wrong--is in residential care, she is not eligible for winter fuel payment whatever her age. Therefore, were she 70 and in residential care on benefit she would still not qualify because of the double funding rule: that is, if you are being supported and your heat is being provided for you by the public purse you do not in addition receive the winter fuel payment.

Lord Ezra: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that an important element in home heating is the effectiveness of insulation? Can she give the House an assurance that under the Government's Home Energy Efficiency Scheme (HEES) special attention will be paid to those who are severely disabled?

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Yes, my Lords, and the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, is absolutely right. We are extending the Home Energy Efficiency Scheme so that there is a £2,000 grant to those over 60 and a £1,000 grant to those under 60, and we are also investing £2.5 billion with local authorities to improve the repairs of our housing stock. One of our difficulties, as your Lordships will understand, is that this country, compared with much of Europe, has a higher proportion of older housing stock. As the noble Lord will know, it is often in poor repair, poorly insulated and, as regards pensioners, often under-occupied.

Baroness Noakes: My Lords, will the noble Baroness confirm that the Government have paid only 1 million out of a potential 1.9 million claims for retrospective winter fuel payments? Will she say what additional steps the Government will take to ensure that those amounts are paid to the people who are entitled to them?

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Yes, my Lords. As of last year, there were 50 people only who were entitled to receive it in the current year's payment and did not. That was because we did not know their national insurance numbers. Of the rest, the reason is that because for the most part they are men between the ages of 60 and 65, often in work and not necessarily known to the former Department of Social Security, now the DWP, we have to institute a claims process for them. However, they can claim at any time. That process is working well I think and there is no problem about back-dating it.

Lord Swinfen: My Lords, have the Government undertaken any research into the effects of very cold weather on people with severe disabilities? If not, do they have any plans to do so?

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, we know that disabled people, along with children, pensioners and many people in our society, experience the cold badly. Our question is: who are those who most need our help? They are people who are in fuel poverty; that is, more than 10 per cent of their income is going to meet their fuel needs. My information is that 50 per cent of those in fuel poverty are pensioners and only 4 per cent of severely disabled people--primarily because they have disability living allowance--are also in fuel poverty. That shows to me that the benefit at the moment is well targeted.

Terrorist Attacks: Effect on UK Economy

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	How the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 11th September have changed their outlook for the United Kingdom economy; and what gross domestic product growth rates they now expect for 2001 and 2002.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Government's latest economic forecasts were published in Budget 2001. Updated forecasts for the UK and world economies will be presented as part of the forthcoming Pre-Budget Report.

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply as far as it goes. Does he accept that boom and bust have not been abolished, that economic growth is slowing down and that taxes and borrowing will clearly have to go up? The general election showed very strong support for fair tax rises to pay for improved public services. Will the noble Lord ask the Prime Minister to stop hinting and start fighting to mobilise that support, even with a fraction of the courage that he shows in fighting enemies abroad? If the Prime Minister wants a headline when he makes the official announcement of this new policy in the Sun, may I suggest that it should be "Health taxes, not stealth taxes"?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Lord is inviting me to provide a running forecast that changes day by day, or week by week, of what our view of the economy should be. I believe that that would be very unwise. The fact is that Budget 2001 took a very realistic, and at times pessimistic, view of our economy and the world economy. We made the point that further risks to our economy and the world economy were all in the downward direction. Under those circumstances I shall not be tempted to make intervening forecasts, and I shall certainly not follow the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, in his policy speculations.

Lord Saatchi: My Lords, was not the point of the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, that, as we have seen in recent weeks, straightforwardness is a virtue and any appearance of manipulation is a vice? The Government have shown admirable straightforwardness in terms of war and diplomacy following the events of 11th September, but is it not right that when it comes to economics we have been treated to much the same spectacle as before; namely, contradictory briefings by Ministers, hints of one kind or another, as the noble Lord said, and briefings of selected journalists with contradictory views of what this might mean for taxes and spending? Would it not be better to apply the same straightforwardness to economics as the Government have admirably applied to war and diplomacy?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, this is a very powerful Government, but if they were capable of manipulating the world economy they really would have something on which to congratulate themselves.

Lord Ezra: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that we are continuing to run balance of payments deficits in trade and goods which every quarter are higher than the last? How long does the noble Lord consider that that will continue, and at what point will the Government feel that they should intervene?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, it is certainly true that the most recent figures for our deficit on current account are higher than those in previous quarters, but I must point out that in proportion to gross domestic product they are substantially lower than they were for considerable periods in the 1980s.

Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, for the sake of clarification, can the noble Lord give us the anticipated GDP growth rates most recently available to him pre-11th September for 2001 and 2002?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the most recent figures are those in Budget 2001, which anticipated growth in 2001 and in 2003 in the range of 2¼ to 2¾ per cent.

Euro: UK Entry Assessment

Lord Taverne: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	When they expect to complete the assessment of the five tests for joining the euro.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Government have said that an assessment of the five economic tests will be produced within two years of the start of this Parliament.

Lord Taverne: My Lords, why does it take the Treasury so long since the tests were first announced in 1997? If the OECD experts can reach the conclusion that the five tests have been substantially complied with, what is keeping the Treasury? Will the Government assure us that, since the decision whether or not to join the euro is as much a political one as an economic one and there is some room for objective interpretation of the five tests, the matter will not be left just to the Chancellor so we can be sure that the decision will not be influenced in any way by personal calculations about the impact on his future?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord means subjective rather than objective interpretation of the five tests. I do not know whether he is right, but I am sure that that is what he meant to say. In a sense, he has answered the first question with his second. Of course there are considerations other than economic ones. We have always recognised that there are constitutional issues involved. I assure the noble Lord that the timing of the assessment which we have undertaken to make in the first two years of this Parliament is not delayed by shortage of staff or lack of will.

Lord Sheldon: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that of the five economic tests the most important is the question of alignment between the economies of the other parts of Europe and ourselves? Is it not also clear that since the economic tests were set out four years ago in 1997 there has been a considerable improvement in the alignment between the currencies and that this is not a barrier to our entry into the euro? Since 11th September, that has continued, not surprisingly. Does my noble friend agree that in three months' time the euro will be circulating not least in this country and people will understand its nature, become familiar with it and find it acceptable, which must have an impact upon the referendum in due course?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I cannot be tempted in the direction of saying which of the five tests is more important than the others. Clearly, the first of the five tests, sustainable convergence, is of very great importance. Since 1997 there have been a number of changes both towards and against convergence between our economy and those with the single currency. I do not believe that the evidence is anything like as clear as my noble friend indicates. However, I am sure he is right that the existence in banks and pockets of a European single currency from the beginning of next year will make a very substantial difference to the way in which the matter is viewed in this country.

Lord Renton: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, like his predecessors, has an obligation to try to control inflation within the United Kingdom and that if we cease to have our own currency he will lose the greater part of his power to do so?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, experience has been that the responsibility which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has given the Bank of England in pursuance of the objective of a stable currency has been very successful. I do not believe there is anything in that which indicates any doubt about the success of such policies in or out of the euro in future.

Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, will my noble friend reflect that among the recent changes to which he referred was the clarity of purpose of the Prime Minister's speech at the Labour Party conference which was widely welcomed in this country? In view of that encouraging speech in relation to the euro, will my noble friend seek instructions to change the mantra that is now becoming somewhat boring and, as we are agreed in principle to join a successful single currency, perhaps start to spell out some of the benefits which will accrue to this country when we have had the assessment, the agreement of the Government and the referendum?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, it is in no sense a criticism of the Prime Minister's speech at the Labour Party conference to say that some of the reactions to it were rather exaggerated. He said that if the assessment was favourable and the Government took a decision, there was no reason why there should not be a referendum within this Parliament. That has been both implicit and explicit in government policy for a number of years.

Lord Newby: My Lords, the Minister said that the assessment of the tests would not be delayed by lack of resources within the Treasury. Can the noble Lord say how many members of staff within the Treasury are now working primarily on the assessment of the tests, and to what timetable?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, no. If one looks at the five economic tests and the question of investment, the financial services industry and employment, it is obvious that a very large number of people in the Treasury are working on the issues which build up towards the assessment of the five economic tests. How many of them are working on it primarily is really a secondary issue. The point is that we have the capacity to undertake the assessment. Clearly, it is not an assessment that can be undertaken lightly at monthly meetings of the Monetary Policy Committee. One does not sit down on a Wednesday morning and announce the results of the assessment at Thursday lunchtime or Thursday afternoon. It does not work like that.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, instead of concentrating so much on the comparatively irrelevant five economic tests, would it not be more helpful if the Government were to explain to the British people how they propose to get around EMU's basic flaws, which are that one interest rate must fit a dozen different and diverging economies, where there is no common language, little mobility of labour and where interstate transfers on the scale required to hold the United States of America together, and indeed the United Kingdom, simply do not exist? What are the Government going to do about the real problems with this crazy project?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, since I do not accept the premises of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, I can hardly be expected to follow him in his conclusions. There are issues on both sides. Otherwise, we would not be undertaking these economic assessments. But if we look at the balance of benefits and disadvantages--taking the opposites of my noble friend Lord Tomlinson and the noble Lord, Lord Pearson--it is clear that there is considerable thinking to be done. We are doing that.

Lord Barnett: My Lords, will my noble friend accept that in practice the five tests are virtually never achievable if one takes the sustainability argument within them? Therefore, is there not only one serious test, namely convergence between sterling and the euro? Is there any particular reason why the Government are not willing to accept that it will be possible on that test--an announcement that we are to go in, as I hope we are, in itself will do something in that direction--to negotiate a devaluation between the two currencies?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, that is an interesting thought. Those who have tried to negotiate devaluation have realised on many occasions how little exchange rates--after all, these are floating exchange rates--are at the beck and call of governments of whatever colour. There are considerations which have to be taken into account in reaching the assessment and coming to a conclusion. There are also effects which will take place after the Government's decision and recommendation to the people of this country. Those are equally significant.

Lord Saatchi: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in his answer to the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, the noble Lord flatly contradicted his own Chancellor. If I heard the noble Lord correctly, he thought that there were constitutional considerations concerning the joining of the euro whereas the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said the exact opposite.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, on the contrary. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has always said that there are constitutional considerations but that they are not insuperable.

Lord Tanlaw: My Lords, can the Minister tell me whether I am correct in assuming that if the country joins the single European currency we will switch to the harmonisation of European time?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, may I be tempted into a personal opinion which is that I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw? However, it does not follow from our entry into a Europe of single currency.

Golden Jubilee Medal

Baroness Howells of St Davids: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What arrangements they have in place for the award of Golden Jubilee medals to the police force.

Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, under the criteria announced by the then Home Secretary on 15th February, the police will not be eligible to receive the medal. Ministers are considering representations made by, and on behalf of, the police. If there is to be any change in the criteria an announcement will be made.

Baroness Howells of St Davids: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her reply. Perhaps I may direct her attention to the words of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, on 15th October. He said:
	"The most abiding memory of the events of the 11th September was the sight of firemen, police and other emergency services going against the flow and going into danger as others fled from it. There is no doubt that if we ever faced a similar attack, we could rely on a similar sense of duty and heroism".--[Official Report, 15/10/01; col. 366.]
	Will the Minister not think again and recommend a medal to every officer, especially as morale is said to be very low in the police force at this time?

Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, as the daughter of a chief fire officer, I entirely accept everything that my noble friend has said about the extraordinary bravery of all the emergency services involved in dealing with the terrorist attack in New York on 11th September. However, in this country the police in particular receive recognition for valuable service through bravery awards, civil awards in the New Year and birthday honours lists, the award of the Queen's Police Medal and the award of long service and good conduct medals to mark dedicated and exemplary service; so too, do members of the other emergency services, including the fire service.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, does the Minister accept that sometimes our police forces are called on to perform beyond the call of duty? Is the noble Baroness aware of the valuable work being done by the Metropolitan Police in terms of identifying the British citizens who died on 11th September and in tracing people from all over the world who are missing following the events of that day? Does she further accept that the police have a high profile in terms of defending minorities at this difficult time? Are those not qualities that should command some kind of medal for those who perform beyond the call of duty?

Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I entirely recognise what the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, has said. I salute the excellent work of the police in New York in the aftermath of 11th September. But, as I have already said, there are a variety of different ways in which this can be recognised; through medals of various different kinds for the police, for the fire and ambulance services and for others who are involved in this kind of work. The Government, after careful thought, decided that eligibility for the award of Jubilee medals next year should be restricted to members of the uniformed Armed Forces, including reserves and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, who have completed a minimum of five years reckonable service at the time of the 50th anniversary of the Queen's succession.

Lord Imbert: My Lords, I am pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Howells, has asked this Question. I am interested that the Minister's Answer gives a glimmer of hope that the matter will be reconsidered. If I may comment on it--

Noble Lords: Question!

Lord Imbert: May I comment on it?

Noble Lords: Question.

Lord Imbert: May I say that I find the Answer unsatisfactory in total? The Minister said that the police can earn the long service and good conduct medals. It takes 22 years before a police officer qualifies for those. I should mention that police officers, like your Lordships, swear an oath of allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen. The Metropolitan Police in particular has a special relationship with Her Majesty and with the Royal Family because it provides them with 24-hour protection. We could also have asked a question about the non-inclusion of the fire service and those wonderful voluntary organisations, the Red Cross and St. John. I realise that the people on the committee which considered this matter, who I suspect never go out at night, would have done so over a cup of coffee and biscuits. I suspect that they found it too administratively difficult.

Noble Lords: Question!

Lord Imbert: I hope that there will be reconsideration.

Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, let me assure the noble Lord, Lord Imbert, that those who considered this question do go out at night. As I have already indicated, the Government recognise the important role played by all the emergency services in our public life. These decisions are difficult. The Government have said that they will look again at the question. When they have done so, they will make clear what the decision has been.
	I should also stress that Her Majesty the Queen has said that there should be no undue expenditure on the Jubilee. Any extension of the award of the medal would have to be paid for out of existing budgets so savings would have to be made from elsewhere.

Baroness Sharples: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that next year is a very special year? Given that we are to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen, perhaps an extension of the award of the medal should be made.

Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, a large number of medals will be awarded to active uniformed members of the armed services. Of course I recognise that next year will be special and many special events will take place: from a classical music concert open to the public in the gardens of Buckingham Palace to a pop concert open to the public also in the gardens of Buckingham Palace; a huge Golden Jubilee carnival pageant is to take place in the Mall; and a musical equestrian tribute is to be staged at the Royal Windsor Horse Show, entitled "All the Queen's Horses", with a cast of 2,000 people and 1,000 horses. So a great deal will be done to celebrate this special year.

Homelessness Bill

Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Business of the House: Debates this Day

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. It has been slightly amended for a legitimate purpose, which is to point out that, 50 years ago today, my old sparring partner the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil, first became a Member of Parliament. In that time he has been a very considerable parliamentarian, something that is known to all in this House. I have never heard a criticism or complaint made against him, except that he has always been too tactful in asking questions.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble and learned Lord. Had I realised that I would be surrounded by such warmth, I might have tabled a Question for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, who, to mark a special occasion, could then have answered it.
	Moved, That Standing Order 40 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be dispensed with today to allow the Motion standing in the name of the Lord Kingsland to be taken before the Report stage of the British Overseas Territories Bill [HL].--(Lord Williams of Mostyn.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Deputy Chairmen of Committees

Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the Lord Cope of Berkeley be added to the panel of Lords appointed to act as Deputy Chairmen of Committees for this Session, in the place of the Lord Henley.--(The Chairman of Committees.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

European Union: Select Committee

Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the Lord Cavendish of Furness be appointed a member of the Select Committee in the place of the Baroness O'Cathain.--(The Chairman of Committees.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Financial Services and Markets Tribunal Rules 2001

Lord Kingsland: rose to move, That this House calls upon Her Majesty's Government to withdraw the rules (S.I. 2001/2476) and replace them with rules that preserve the confidentiality of proceedings in the Financial Services Appeals Tribunal.

Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I shall be as brief as I can in speaking to the Motion. The rule in issue is Rule 17 entitled "Hearings in Public" of the Financial Services and Markets Rules 2001. Until the rules were published some six months after the Financial Services Bill became an Act of Parliament, there was a common understanding that disciplinary hearings in financial matters would be heard in private. When the tribunal resolved the issue on one or other side of the argument, then and only then would a public statement be made.
	Most of those involved in the financial services world, not only the practitioners but also those involved who chair tribunals, have always taken the view that this was the right approach. People in the City are responsible for other people's money. Any taint or suggested taint on their competence or honour immediately has an adverse and damaging effect on many others, even if, subsequently, that person turns out to be blameless. Therefore, a strong argument has always been advanced for private proceedings in financial tribunals. That is a characteristic of the Financial Services Act 1986 and of the Banking Act 1987.
	Throughout the debates held on the Financial Services Bill, both in another place and in your Lordships' House, I think I can say that all noble Lords believed that that presumption would remain enshrined in the Act and would affect every delegated order made under it. The first draft of the Act did suggest that public hearings should be held, but as a result of the joint committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, the Government changed their view. The basis of the Bill, as it went through the House of Commons, remained unchanged. Indeed, in the course of November 1999, in another place, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury said in terms that the presumption of privacy would be maintained.
	When the Bill came to your Lordships' House on 30th March last year, an amendment was tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, responded to it in the following manner:
	"The remainder of my remarks relate to publication. The new clause on publication, therefore, requires the authority to publish such details about a final notice as it considers appropriate, except for information the publication of which would, in its opinion, be unfair to the person concerned or prejudicial to the interests of consumers.
	The Government believe, however, that it is necessary to avoid any risk that a person might be unfairly tainted, by giving publicity to the fact that some contravention had been alleged by the FSA, before the person concerned had had an opportunity to refer the matter to the tribunal, or before a matter referred to the tribunal had been finally determined by the tribunal or the appeal courts. Under the new clause on publication, the authority is, therefore, prevented from publishing details about warning and decision notices".--[Official Report, 30/3/00; cols.915-916.]
	I submit that that statement is unequivocal. In quoting it to noble Lords, I hasten to add that it is not in any way my intention to make any criticism of the noble Lord, Lord Bach. I am convinced that, when he made that statement, that was the situation as he understood it.
	Contrast Rule 17 in the rules published six months after the Bill became law:
	"(2) Subject to the following paragraphs of this rule, all hearings shall be in public.
	(3) The Tribunal may direct that all or part of a hearing shall be in private--
	"(a) upon the application of all the parties; or
	(b) upon the application of any party, if the Tribunal is satisfied that a hearing in private is necessary, having regard to--
	(i) the interests of morals, public order, national security or the protection of the private lives of the parties; or
	(ii) any unfairness to the applicant or prejudice to the interests of consumers that might result from a hearing in public,
	if, in either case, the Tribunal is satisfied that a hearing in private would not prejudice the interests of justice".
	I understand that the Government now take the view that financial services tribunals ought to hold their hearings in public because they are required to do so by the terms of Article 6.1 of the Human Rights Convention. I shall say something about that at the end of my remarks, but, in my submission, that is not the real issue in this debate.
	The real issue is that the Government never signalled that they were going to make this change during the course of the Bill. Worse, as we have seen from the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, they made statements which led your Lordships' House to believe that the presumption of privacy was safe in their hands. Had your Lordships' House had the slightest knowledge that this was not so, it is certain that your Lordships would have required a full debate on the issue, with amendments tabled, when we reached the stage in the Bill where the provision for making orders was to be discussed.
	It is also very important for your Lordships' House to recall the basic deal that was struck over the Financial Services Bill. It was often said, especially by many of your Lordships who have great experience in the City, that the FSA was judge and jury, investigator and prosecutor in its own cause, and conducted all these functions with very few constraints. It was therefore decided that there should be an independent tribunal to which someone who had been subject to an investigation and an adverse decision by the FSA could appeal.
	It was part of that balanced and structured deal between the City and the Government that the proceedings of the tribunal should be held in private. That was for the reason that it would be a deep disincentive for anyone subject to an adverse decision of the FSA--which would be taken in private and not publicised--to go to a tribunal knowing that the alleged offence would be discussed in public. Were the tribunal proceedings to be conducted in public, therefore, there would be a very strong disinclination for someone judged to have contravened the FINSMA rules by the FSA to appeal. He would rather take his medicine knowing that at least no one would ever find out about what he had done. The addition of the independent tribunal, together with privacy, was, I repeat, an essential part of a balanced and structured deal to which we all thought the Government had signed up. Indeed, it could be argued that publicity in financial services tribunals contravenes Article 6.1 of the Human Rights Act because it militates against an individual using his full rights to appeal against a potentially unjust decision.
	What have the Government had to say in response? They have said, really, two things. First, that some two weeks before the noble Lord, Lord Bach, made his statement in your Lordships' House, the first set of draft tribunal rules were circulated signalling the Government's change of policy. These rules were not circulated to the general public but to select Members of the Committee of your Lordships' House which was responsible for the Financial Services Bill. I know that the Minister will say that a letter was sent to my noble friend Lord Saatchi. I believe she will also say that she knows that a letter was not sent to me.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I have the letter in front of me. It was sent to all noble Lords who took part in the debate.

Lord Kingsland: My Lords, that is the first time that I have heard a letter was sent to me. Neither my noble friend Lord Saatchi nor I have received those letters. I have a complete file of all the letters that the Government sent to me during the course of the Bill--it is a very large piece of furniture--and, curiously, that letter is not in it. Nor is it, I understand, in the file of my noble friend Lord Saatchi.
	It would be an extraordinary coincidence if a letter sent to both of us failed to reach either of us. The Government are not suggesting, I hope, that we are not telling the truth?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, this is very strange because I have a photocopy of the letter, topped and tailed by me--"Dear Maurice", "Yours ever, Andrew", "March 14th 2000". I have it here. It is clear that it went to the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi. Others on the receiving list--notably the noble Lord, Lord Burns--did receive it.

Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I entirely accept that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, received it because the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, has informed me that that was so. But neither my noble friend Lord Saatchi nor I received it.
	In any event, if it was the Government's plain intention on 14th February to reverse the presumption, why did they not announce that on the Floor of your Lordships' House at some stage after 14th February? Such a dramatic change in government policy surely merited some explanation on the Floor of your Lordships' House.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I hope that the House will forgive me, but this is becoming so personal that I have to intervene. I hope that my noble friend Lady Scotland will also forgive me. There is no dramatic change. The letter simply had attached to it a copy of the summary of the rules for the Financial Services and Markets Tribunal. I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, is claiming that these were not in the public domain. They certainly were.

Lord Kingsland: My Lords, they were not in the public domain. The rules were not put out for consultation until long after that. They may have been circulated to some Members of the Committee, but they were not put out to general circulation. In any event, why was this crucial provision not drawn to the attention of your Lordships' House? Moreover, the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, to your Lordships' House was made two weeks after the document was circulated. So it would be reasonable for your Lordships to conclude that, in respect of any suggestion in that document that the presumption was going to be changed, on that issue the Government had thought again.
	The other objection to the presumption of privacy is the suggestion that public hearings are necessary to conform with the Human Rights Act. I find that a curious proposition. It is of course true that Article 6.1 of the convention requires a public hearing. The reason for that is that at the time the convention was drafted many states on the Continent did not give citizens the benefit of public hearings, sometimes in criminal cases and sometimes in other kinds of cases. The public hearing is an entitlement that an individual citizen of Europe rightly has; but, just because it is an entitlement, it should not become a burden to that citizen in circumstances where he believes that his rights are better served by having a contentious matter heard in private. There is nothing that I have seen in cases in the European Court of Human Rights which states that my contention is not so.

Baroness Crawley: My Lords, in the light of the statement of the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, the Government are on strong ground to say that it would be a breach of the Human Rights Convention if such tribunals were to be heard in private. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland--

Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I hope the noble Baroness will forgive me. I did not hear the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, move his Motion. However, I understand that he has done so.

Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I moved my Motion at the beginning of my speech. In doing so, perhaps I breached some crucial rule of your Lordships' House. I shall therefore move it again. I beg to move.

Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I apologise to the House for "jumping up" too quickly.
	The remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, have not convinced me that he has dealt with the issue of the human rights convention. Nor, I believe, has he convinced many Members of this House who were of the opinion that such tribunals were to take place in public. This praying against the rules by the Opposition goes contrary to the mood in the country; namely, people want more and more tribunals to be heard in public. I understand the present political consensus to be in favour of a whole agenda of greater transparency. In relation to financial matters in particular the public are angry at unnecessary confidentiality. Many would say that there should not be one rule for the City and one for the rest of us. I believe that the public will increasingly want transparency in these matters, particularly in the light of a number of recent controversies over pensions.
	The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, referred to paragraph 17 of the rules, which contains a provision--if the tribunal is in agreement--for cases to be heard in public. When he responds to the debate, perhaps the noble Lord will tell us why the protection laid down in the rules is not sufficient.

Lord Newby: My Lords, I have considerable sympathy with the Motion. I shall refer to two aspects: first, the way in which the Government behaved during the passage of the Bill and subsequently; and, secondly, the substance of the issue. Having sat through virtually every debate during the passage of the Bill through this House, the Motion accords with my belief regarding the view that the Government were giving to those of us who were involved.
	Faced with the recommendation in the report of the Joint Select Committee that privacy should be maintained in respect of tribunals, we began with the presumption that that would be the Government's view. It is my belief that that view was not openly challenged by the Government during the passage of the Bill. We believed that privacy would be the rule and I cannot remember an occasion on which that belief was challenged. Furthermore, to the extent that statements regarding privacy were made during the passage of the Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, said, the only construction that could be placed on them was that the tribunals would, as a matter of course, be held in private.
	Much has been made of the question of a letter that we may or may not have received. I was almost certainly on the list of recipients. The only point I make is that at the time the letter was sent I and other noble Lords involved with proceedings on the Bill were probably receiving at least six letters a day from the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh. They were not merely billets-doux; each letter had attached to it possibly 20 pages of amendments. If I received a letter with a covering note stating merely, "Here is a set of statutory instruments" among a pile of papers several inches thick, I can say with almost complete certainty that I did not give that letter the attention that we are now invited by the Government Benches to believe it deserved. It was frankly impossible, under the "blizzard" of letters and amendments--many hundreds were put forward over a short time-scale--for anyone on this side of the House to spend hours poring over every page to check whether the Government had changed their mind without telling us.
	Also, the consultation process did not allow outside bodies to comment on the statutory instruments before the Bill became law. I therefore believe that, on the first question about how the Government behaved during the passage of the legislation, they are guilty as charged.
	The second point relates to the substance. Should the tribunals created by the Financial Services and Markets Act be based on a presumption of privacy or on presumption of public hearings? During the passage of the Bill in this House we supported a presumption of privacy. We did so because we took the strength of the argument that financial institutions could be put at risk if information about tribunal hearings was made public at an early stage. We believed that the decision as to whether a hearing should be held in public or in private should be essentially in the hands of the appellants. We did so, believing that this was compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights--a view which I believe went unchallenged by the Government.
	Since this Motion was tabled, I have, however, received advice from our own experts in human rights law. It is their clear view that the tribunal rules proposed by the Government are compatible with Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and that the proposal contained in this Motion would be incompatible with that provision.
	The Motion seeks to do two things. It seeks to give the Government a bloody nose on their handling of this issue, and to persuade them to reverse their policy. I believe that they deserve the bloody nose; but I do not now believe that a policy reversal is compatible with our international human rights obligations. I shall, therefore, advise my colleagues to abstain on the Motion.

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts: My Lords, I was not a Member of this House when the Financial Services and Markets Bill was debated, so I was not a recipient of the "blizzard" of correspondence from the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh. However, I want to speak in support of my noble friend's Motion. This issue is of great importance to the City and to the financial community generally.
	The Government's approach may be ingenuous. As my noble friend said, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, gave a clear undertaking to the House during the passage of the Bill, and later. If, as has been said, the Government now wish to argue that the tribunal is outside the processes of the Financial Services Authority, that is extraordinary. Lawyers may be able to construct otherwise; but, to a mere layman like myself, a body with the title "the financial services and markets tribunal" is clearly part of the processes of the Financial Services Authority and is, therefore, covered by the undertaking given by the noble Lord, Lord Bach. If they are not being ingenuous, I fear that the Government have simply decided to change their mind and for some reason do not want to admit it. The only other possibility is that they are taking a rather more duplicitous approach: namely, they now want to push the matter through in the blizzard of statutory instruments accompanying the coming into force of the new Act.
	Before going further, I must declare two interests. I am the chairman of an investment bank in the City which is regulated under the present provisions and will be regulated under the provisions of the Financial Services and Markets Act. More importantly, I was until March this year a member of the board of the Securities and Futures Authority, which will be subsumed within the new provisions. For the next few weeks, at least until N2 on 30th November, I remain the deputy chairman of its Enforcement Committee, which is concerned with the provision and enforcement of discipline on the City community. So for the past six or seven years I have seen at first hand the challenges of discipline in the financial services industries.
	I have absolutely no problem with making public the names of individuals and firms that have transgressed, once the disciplinary process has been exhausted. Publicity and the threat of publicity is an extremely powerful weapon in the hands of a regulator. It may not be appreciated by many of your Lordships how much even the largest firms hate publicity of that nature. A disciplinary notice published by the authority on 18th October carries a headline reporting that a firm and an individual were expelled. Notices of that nature, which are made public, are invariably fought line by line by even the largest firms because the financial services industry often deals with intangibles. It cannot, probably perforce, prove a better mousetrap. The successful firm depends on the twin pillars of confidence and reputation.
	During my years on the SFA enforcement committee, it has not always been able to convince defendants of the view that they have transgressed and should accept a penalty. Instead, they have chosen to go before a tribunal. I regret that my committee's view has not always prevailed before the tribunal--which has, from time to time, found in favour of the defendant.
	Under the current system, all that takes place in private. The defendants were left with no stain on their public reputation and therefore with none on their business. If the Government's approach is accepted, that carefully constructed balance will be upset. Regulated firms, knowing that there will be publicity whatever the outcome, will inevitably be reluctant to avail themselves of their full legal rights.
	Despite tribunal hearings being in private, there is a significant disciplinary element. The SFA always believes that there is at least an element of sailing close to the wind. The firm in question will know that the authority holds that belief and will be doubly careful in future.
	Nowhere is confidence and reputation more important than in the case of smaller firms. Over the past half century, the City of London has been one of this country's great success stories. Part of that success has come about because smaller firms have continuously promoted new ideas and approaches--so nipping at the heels of their larger, lumbering rivals. Not all ideas have been good. Some have been downright bad. However, the overall effect has been beneficial--providing fresh impetus to the City as a whole.
	Small firms are not always welcomed by regulators because they represent risk--something regulators hate. From a regulator's point of view, it is much safer to have fewer, larger firms with which one can establish a long-term relationship than small firms engaged in freelance pioneering.
	A referral to a tribunal with proceedings held in public, no matter what the outcome, would almost certainly be fatal to a small firm. Even if the defendant is found not guilty, the aura of being so referred will take a long time to dispel. The City has a long collective memory: "Wasn't that the firm involved in a tribunal? I don't remember the details." Such recollections would make a significant dent on any firm's operations for a long time.
	What will all that matter in the short term? Probably not much. But over time, there will be a slow blunting of the City's innovative edge to its cost and to the cost of the whole country.
	I conclude with a parallel point. Clause 23(b)--which I think should be (a) anyway--uses the word "anonymising". The Oxford English Dictionary in the Library does not endorse the use of "anonymous" as a verb--although its use as an adjective, adverb or noun is fair enough. To render or make anonymous or even to ensure anonymity is fair enough, but "anonymising" is a dumbing down of the English language. I hope that the Government will think about producing a better and more current word. It may be that on that point, as with so much of the statutory instrument, the Treasury is in touch with some higher authority than we mere mortals can understand. I support my noble friend's Prayer.

Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Kingsland fully and carefully narrated the response, which he characterised as unequivocal. It seems impossible to characterise the response as anything other than unequivocal. Had I sought to challenge that response, when it was made by a Minister at the Dispatch Box in such unequivocal terms, your Lordships would have viewed it as a shameful waste of time.
	As I understand the principle now enunciated by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, we should prefer in future not an unequivocal statement by a Minister but a set of draft regulations attached to a letter that appears in an avalanche of other paperwork circulated to all those interested.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I said no such thing. I did not refer to the speech by my noble friend Lord Bach, which will be dealt with by my noble friend Lady Scotland when she winds up. I do not accept the noble Lord's observation. I simply wanted to establish that the letter had been written and included the details that I mentioned.

Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I may have misunderstood the Minister. I will read carefully what he said, but it seems clear from four interventions that the noble Lord attached a great deal of significance to the letter. It seemed as though he wanted to set aside the noble Lord's unequivocal statement.
	Your Lordships spent hours examining the Bill, not only in this House but in Joint Committee, to ascertain which aspects of it might not be compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights. Not only did Ministers appear before the Joint Committee to say that the Bill was compliant but, as is now the custom, attached to the Bill was a statement by a Minister that the legislation was compliant. It would be interesting, in circumstances in which we are told that the Bill does not comply, to know who was that Minister.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am being referred to again. I signed the certificate under Section 19 of the Human Rights Act, in the belief that the Bill was compliant. It is compliant. There has been no suggestion that the Bill is not compliant. It has emerged from the Liberal Democrat Benches that the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, would not be compliant.

Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, the noble Lord might consider his position because if this is to be the outcome months after the Bill has passed through your Lordships' House, such statements are rendered utterly worthless. If we are to understand what is required of us by the convention when passing legislation, Ministers should not lightly give such undertakings. I regret that seems exactly what has been going on in the present circumstances. It is more than a matter of giving the Government a bloody nose and raising the noble Lord's blood pressure. We should establish the important principle that where Ministers make a statement that proposed legislation complies with the human rights convention and it subsequently emerges that that is not correct, we should at least receive the most profuse apology from the Government for their failing.

Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, I was not involved in the Financial Services and Markets Bill when it passed through this House. My intervention is prompted by the suggestion that the rules relating to appeals to which the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, referred do not accord with statements in this House and in another place during the Bill's passage. Having approached the matter with no preconceptions, it is absolutely clear to me that the rules fundamentally depart from what was said to both Houses.
	As there has been some discussion about the modes of correspondence, I shall refer to the amazingly unsatisfactory way in which my inquiries have been dealt with. I tabled a Question for Written Answer and the reply from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor was--if one was being kind--somewhat disingenuous. I wrote to the noble and learned Lord and about one month later, I received what appeared to be his reply--although it was somewhat deficient, as it lacked a date, a superscription and a signature. As that reply referred to the letter from the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, of 14th March, I wrote a preliminary letter back to the Lord Chancellor asking him if his department could let me see the mysterious list of people to whom the letter was notionally despatched.
	Three weeks later the Lord Chancellor's Department rang my secretary to query my second letter because according to them the Lord Chancellor had never replied to me at all. When, at their request, she faxed them a copy of the unsigned letter, they told her that it had been sent out in error, that it had not been seen either by the Lord Chancellor or by his staff and that he would send a proper reply--a promise which has not been fulfilled. Quite how that letter came into being as it had not even been seen by his staff, I am not entirely clear. But this matter appears to be bedevilled with actual pieces of paper which are not letters and real letters which do not appear to have reached those for whom they were intended. But the content of that "non-letter" was, again, entirely unsatisfactory and failed to remove my concerns.
	I indicate to your Lordships two ways in which it seems to me that the matter is not acceptable. In his letter the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor denies that this House was led to believe that tribunal hearings would be in private on the basis that on 4th November 1999 the other place was told that the rules would comply with best practice laid down by the Council on Tribunals. That statement to the other place could have referred only to the rules as they existed at that date. So far as I am aware, those rules did not at that date have the presumption of publicity which the Government now contend. But the noble and learned Lord, in answer to my question as to the statements made by the Government on this issue, referred only to the statement of the Financial Secretary and did not in any way mention the statement made in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, to which the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, has referred.
	Perhaps I may be forgiven for repeating the essence of what the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said. I entirely endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, said; namely, that no one is accusing the noble Lord, Lord Bach, of having got it wrong. He just appears to have been caught up in something which has now become somewhat messy. He said,
	"The Government believe, however, that it is necessary to avoid any risk that a person might be unfairly tainted, by giving publicity to the fact that some contravention had been alleged by the FSA, before the person concerned had had an opportunity to refer the matter to the tribunal, or before a matter referred to the tribunal had been finally determined by the tribunal or the appeal courts. Under the new clause on publication, the authority is, therefore, prevented from publishing details".--[Official Report, 30/3/00; col. 916.]
	The Government seek to say--or the "non-letter" sought to say--that that statement related only to the publication by the authority of its decision and not to the conduct of the tribunal proceedings. However, that is not what the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said. Anyhow, even the Government's version makes total nonsense of those words. The aim of not publishing the decision plainly has to be to allow someone to appeal without being tainted if, in fact, it turns out that his appeal succeeds. That is the plain and, indeed, the only point of preventing publication of a decision pending the appeal.
	But what is the point of preventing publication of a decision pending appeal if, the moment the appeal starts, that whole decision is announced? One cannot conduct an appeal against conviction without making, at least fleetingly, some slight reference to the fact that one has been convicted. It would be a somewhat odd procedure if the Court of Criminal Appeal heard an appeal against conviction without any mention of the nature of the conviction. Therefore, if it is really being said that the point of not publishing the decision is to prevent tainting, plainly that is totally nugatory if the moment the appeal is opened the decision is published.
	In a court, if a party obtains an order without being fully frank to the tribunal from which he obtains his order, the normal course is to set the order aside and allow him to start again on a proper basis. If that is good enough law to be administered by the judges appointed by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, surely it should apply to the Lord Chancellor himself.
	I entirely support the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland. The right thing to do is to set these rules aside, let the matter be retabled and debated and, if the matter has changed and people now have different views about the effect of the Human Rights Act, that can be fully investigated instead of being slipped through as an afterthought reason for what appears to have happened.

The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, I may be able to assist your Lordships on the matter of the missing mail. There was a point some months ago at which I used to receive batches of letters from the noble Lord, Lord Steve Bassam, addressed to senior Members of the House on both sides. However, the sticker on the envelope was addressed to me. Someone in the Home Office was clearly putting the letters in the wrong envelopes. As I received no mail from the Home Office at that point, nor did I expect any, I was even more surprised. I used to slit them open and hand them to the attendants. However, others may have received those letters and not slit them open or handed them to the attendants but put them in the bin. That may explain the missing letters.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, there are three issues here. The first is whether or not Ministers in the House of Commons and in this place inadvertently misled the House with the result that the rules before us today are inconsistent with assurances given. The second issue is whether or not the advice on which Ministers spoke in the debate was correct; namely, in terms of the effect of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The third issue is whether or not, quite apart from all that, the merits support the proposal in the rules that tribunal hearings should be held in public subject to a caveat, or whether they should follow the assurances given in debates here and in the other place.
	I entirely support the Prayer put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, at least as to the importance of the issues concerned and the lesson they may have for this place. Like other noble Lords, I would not be at all content if the point made by my noble friend Lord Newby concerning the many billets-doux which shower upon us during the course of these Bills, quite apart from the mass of amendments that come up night after night, was ignored. It would be not merely futile but counter-productive were those communications in any sense to have priority over what is said on the Floor of this House in debate. I hope that the Minister in responding to the debate will agree with that proposition.
	I say a few quick words about the advice which I assume Ministers were given before they spoke as they did in the debates. In particular I refer to the words spoken by Miss Melanie Johnson, who was then Economic Secretary to the Treasury, on 4th November 1999. I am sure that some noble Lords may not have picked this up. Miss Johnson said:
	"As long as that [namely a tribunal hearing in private] is consistent with the interests of justice and everyone's right to a public hearing under ECHR, it is intended that that [the private hearing] will generally be at the request of the person referring the case",
	namely, the appellant to the tribunal.
	That is absolutely clear. It is quite clear too that she had had advice on the meaning and intent of Article 6. I note that Halsbury makes the point--as is clear from Article 6, which is primarily a protection for individuals caught up in civil or criminal process--that,
	"The convention does not require a public hearing if an accused or a party has waived the right to such a hearing, provided that the waiver is unequivocal and there is no important public interest consideration that calls for the public to be present".
	I am sure we await to hear with great interest what the Minister will say about the Government's present view of Article 6. However, if the prayer of the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, is no longer consistent with their interpretation of Article 6, we deserve an explanation as to why different advice was apparently given in November 1999 and when the noble Lord, Lord Bach, spoke to the same intent in March 2000.
	Finally, France has private hearings before the Conseil d'Etat which are subject to the same European convention. On the other hand, New York is not subject to the convention and has public hearings. I have earned my living in a law firm in the City over the past 35 years. I am not convinced by those in the City who argue that a private hearing is in the best interests of the City. In an obvious and superficial way that case can be and is made; but it is in the greater public interest that the tribunals should be heard in public.
	There is a mystique around the City. Many people believe that it is a law unto itself. There is a degree of unhappiness about the small number of disciplinary proceedings which are brought with regard, for example, to insider trading and the even smaller number of proceedings which are successful. I take issue with my friends in the City who believe that privacy is the best way to effective policing.

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts: My Lords, the noble Lord referred to the question of insider dealing. That is a matter for the Department of Trade.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, of course I accept that. I sought to draw a picture of the way in which the general public views this extraordinarily powerful institution with extraordinarily rich and powerful players (as they are inappropriately called) involved in the City. Far from it being against the interests of the City that the tribunal hearings should be in public, in the interest of public satisfaction with the conduct of affairs within the City--on the whole they are honourably and effectively undertaken--they should be reported. It is idle to pretend that the Sun or the Star, or any of the other "red tops" will be interested in the normal disciplinary proceedings which come before the tribunal. It is more important that the financial press should be able to report the details, background and story behind cases which could prove not only a deterrent to others but, above all, could give them insight into the background of many of those cases.
	In conclusion, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley. It would be a bizarre state of affairs if the man who steals a bottle of milk or the confused old woman who takes a packet of sweets from the supermarket store and does not pay for them should suffer the extreme pain of the deterrence of local publicity until he or she is acquitted but that the greatest and most powerful institutions in our land should be free of those constraints.

Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Throughout the proceedings on the Bill it was one of the Government's contentions that the nature of the offences dealt with by the FSA were not criminal. I understand why the noble Lord seeks to draw the parallel that he does but it is not an exact one.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I accept that. I speak at large. However, the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, will accept that the issues brought before the tribunal are important to those concerned and the market place. Since the City is vital to our economy, they are important to us all. I simply attempt to rebut the argument that somehow these firms would suffer irreparable damage if the tribunal proceedings were publicised. The City is the most sophisticated market on earth and knows precisely how to deal with responsible reports of tribunal proceedings. While I agree with the noble Lord's remarks on the way in which the matter has been dealt with, I beg to differ with him as to the merits of the open private tribunal debate.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, perhaps I may say how grateful I am for this opportunity to debate the procedural rules. It is rare indeed that your Lordships have been treated to such passion in relation to rules of any kind. I was rather troubled when I first became aware of the issues which seemed to divide a number of noble Lords in this House--there appeared to have been a misunderstanding about what was said by my noble friend Lord Bach during the Committee stage on 30th March--not least because it was a misunderstanding as to the proper interpretation to be given to the comments made by my noble friend. That was shared by a number of noble Lords. A number of people have referred to the passages; therefore, at this stage I shall not repeat them but I shall come back to them in due course.
	As your Lordships know, I come rather fresh to the fray regarding this Bill and the rules. Therefore, I thought that the best way of understanding how we came to this sorry pass was to look at the history to see whether I could work out the chronology and how we came to be in the position we now are. With your Lordships' leave, I ask you to come on the journey with me because we may be able to draw the sting out of what appears to be the disagreement.
	We all appear to agree on certain matters. I start with the agreement. The following appears to be clear and, I hope, not subject to disagreement. First, the Financial Services Authority should have a clear remit. Secondly, the tribunal should be independent, robust and Article 6 compliant. We put to one side for the moment what that involves. There should be proper safeguards in place to ensure that procedures adopted by the FSA and the tribunal are fair, open and transparent; and that any legislation brought forward would be ECHR compatible and enable the Government to make a Section 19 compatibility statement in respect of it. All those appear to be given.
	Therefore, perhaps we may start our journey quite a long time ago when the matter came before the Joint Committee on Financial Services and Markets. The first report, volume II, was printed on 27th April 1999. I invite noble Lords' attention to Appendix 2. In Appendix 2 the Government set out their overall objectives. Your Lordships will recall that this appendix was submitted as a note by Her Majesty's Treasury on enforcement procedures. It states:
	"The Government's overall objectives, which appear to be shared by many of the witnesses the Committee has heard on the subject, are:
	"(i)A procedure that is objectively fair and secures a person's rights to a fair hearing as enshrined in the ECHR and Human Rights Act".
	Sub-paragraph (iii) states:
	"The procedure must also allow justice to be done, and be seen to be done, from the point of view of any victims of regulatory breaches and the wider public, whose confidence in the financial services industry is central to the wider aims of this Bill".
	That is consistent with what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, outlined to us.
	Paragraph 2 states:
	"The way in which we have sought to achieve these objectives is by making a distinct separation between the regulatory procedures of the FSA, which are administrative in nature, and the judicial procedures of the tribunal. The Government would welcome the Committee's views on whether the separation is sufficiently clear at present".
	There we have it. The FSA's procedure was going to be separate and apart from the tribunal's procedure.
	Paragraph 8 states that the precise procedural rules for the tribunal will be a matter for the Lord Chancellor and will be consulted on in draft in due course.
	There has already been reference to the speech of my honourable friend, Melanie Johnson, in another place on 4th November. She told the Standing Committee:
	"As the Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce, my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, West (Ms Hewitt)--my predecessor as Economic Secretary--explained to the Joint Committee, the tribunal will be a first-instance tribunal. It will be able to consider all the facts and all the merits of the case, in full compliance with the requirements of Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
	The tribunal will also comply with the current best practice, as laid down by the Council on Tribunals. The council will oversee the tribunal's working in accordance with its role under the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1992. Our amendments make it clear that the tribunal comes within the council's responsibilities under the Act".
	The rules that were current at that stage--the 1991 model rules--were published as a Command Paper. However, the version on the council's website was the September 1999 revision of those rules, which would have been available by 4th November 1999, though they had not been laid before Parliament. As I understand it, those new September 1999 rules provided for publicity.
	We then move on to the troubled letter. The Government have throughout tried to be helpful. Although I hear and have sympathy for what the noble Lord, Lord Newby, says about being showered with a piece of paper, many people would prefer to be showered than not showered at all and remain unclean and uninformed about what was in the Government's mind.
	The letter was written by my noble friend Lord McIntosh in his usual inimitable style in an attempt to be helpful. It might help if I read it, because we have been talking about the letter. It was not in any way intended to supersede what was said by my noble friend Lord Bach; it was intended to better inform the debate that was then proposed to take place on 30th March. My noble friend Lord McIntosh said in his letter:
	"Please find attached a draft of the procedural rules for the Financial Services and Markets Tribunal, which are to be made by the Lord Chancellor under clause 123 of the Bill. I am circulating this draft to assist noble Lords when we reach Part IX of the Bill in Committee.
	I must stress that this is only a working draft. An earlier draft has been shown to the Council on Tribunals, the Court Service, the Northern Ireland Court Service, and the FSA, but this draft does not yet reflect all of their comments. I am sorry that it has not been possible to circulate a more final draft, but I hope that you will nevertheless find it a useful guide as to the sorts of issues being covered in the rules and that it will thereby help to inform our debate.
	I also attach a brief summary of the rules".
	That was an attempt to be entirely helpful and to make sure that there was a degree of clarity and a better understanding that when the noble Lord, Lord Bach, came to discuss the issues there would be a discussion about the FSA and then a separate issue in relation to the tribunal. That was on 14th March.
	We then move on to the comments of my noble friend Lord Bach. However, before I do that it might help noble Lords to know what was contained in the document that was circulated by my noble friend Lord McIntosh. Paragraph 18 of the Explanatory Notes, which was the summary of the rules of the Financial Services and Markets Tribunal, helpfully says, under the heading "Hearings in Public":
	"All hearings, including preliminary hearings and pre-hearing reviews, will be conducted in public except in limited circumstances which reflect the exceptions permitted under the European Convention on Human Rights (namely where a private hearing is required in the interests of morals, public order, national security or the protection of the private lives of the parties, or where it considers that publicity would prejudice the interests of justice)".
	That is pure Article 6 on public hearings. That was sent by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, in order to better inform the debate that took place on 30th March. I hear what the noble Lord says about the Government deserving a bloody nose. I hope that he will find that the punch will not be directed at me--although I dare say that it would enhance my looks.
	We then get to the noble Lord, Lord Bach, himself. For the whole of the period of about a year before, it had been strongly urged that there should be a clear distinction between the FSA rules and the tribunal rules. They were two separate, distinct entities and the independence of the tribunal was key.
	One of the fears, as noble Lords may remember, was that the FSA would behave in a way that would prejudice those who might wish to appeal the notices issued by them. It was therefore very important to make sure that the constraints that were going to be put on what they could and could not do were fair, open and transparent. My noble friend Lord Bach set the context in which this discussion should take place. He said:
	"This group of government amendments all deal, in one way or another, with the end of a notice procedure and the manner in which the final determination of the matter may be notified to the person concerned and published more widely".--[Official Report, 30/3/00; col. 914.]
	I respectfully suggest that he was dealing there with the FSA only, not the tribunal. He went on to deal with the Government's position. I understand the way in which a number of noble Lords have said that this has been interpreted and I can see that that interpretation might be possible if one does not put it in the context of what went before, but once the comments are put in context, my respectful submission is that that interpretation does not hold water.
	Let me help your Lordships on why that is the case. My noble friend said:
	"The Government believe, however, that it is necessary to avoid any risk that a person might be unfairly tainted, by giving publicity to the fact that some contravention had been alleged by the FSA,"--
	not the tribunal--
	"before the person concerned had had an opportunity to refer the matter to the tribunal, or before a matter referred to the tribunal had been finally determined by the tribunal or the appeal courts".--[Official Report, 30/3/00; col. 916.]
	I am sure that none of your Lordships will suggest that they were misled into thinking that if the matter was referred to the Court of Appeal, those hearings would be heard in camera by the Court of Appeal and would not have the normal publicity that goes with the full panoply of the court. Under the new clause on publication, the authority--I repeat, the authority--is therefore prevented from publishing details about warning and decision notices. The Government have accepted that there should be a division between FSA procedures and tribunal procedures. When my noble friend Lord Bach referred to that, he was referring to the procedure in relation to the FSA, not in relation to the tribunal.
	The matter was not specifically dealt with. That is why I understand how the confusion arose, even though I am surprised by it. I am surprised because it certainly appears that in what went before there was no indication that the Government were irrevocably wedded to private hearings. The belief was that that matter was going to be looked at when the rules were prepared. The rules were prepared and circulated before--

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, before the Minister passes on from this part of her speech, will she refer back to what Miss Melanie Johnson said about the ECHR, because she did not refer to it?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I did refer to it, but I am happy to do that. The noble Lord said, in relation to the ECHR, that there is provision if the applicant wishes to waive the publicity and have it in private. In due course, I shall come to Rule 17, which we argue does just that in terms of how Article 6 was intended to operate.

Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, before the noble Baroness moves on from the words of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, can she explain to us how, not as a matter of semantics but as a matter of substance, one prevents a taint, pending the determination of an appeal, by preventing publication of the conviction by the convicting body but allowing total publicity of the hearing against that conviction? How does that prevent taint until the appeal is determined, which is what the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, it enables a constraint to be put on the FSA--the authority--not to so act, whereas it enables the court to exercise its judicial judgment, first, as to whether to decide that the matter should be heard in private and, secondly, which part of the hearing should be heard in private and how disclosure should be managed. Therefore, it does not impinge improperly on the exercise of the tribunal's discretion or the exercise of the discretion of the Court of Appeal. However, it does constrain the FSA from publicising those matters in any other way. We argue that that must be right.
	Perhaps it would help your Lordships if I were to refer to Rule 17, which makes plain how the hearing should be provided for. In that rule, "the hearing" means any hearing under the rules. Sub-paragraph (3) is of importance. It states:
	"The Tribunal may direct that all or part of a hearing shall be in private ... upon the application of all the parties; or ... upon the application of any party, if the Tribunal is satisfied that a hearing in private is necessary, having regard to--
	(i) the interests of morals, public order, national security or the protection of the private lives of the parties; or
	(ii) any unfairness to the applicant or prejudice to the interests of consumers that might result from a hearing in public,
	if, in either case, the Tribunal is satisfied that a hearing in private would not prejudice the interests of justice".
	Therefore, a very flexible tool can be used by the tribunal.
	If, as the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, suggests--I believe that he has set his case rather high--terrible consequences would flow for the public and for the financial institution as a result of publicity, I am sure that the institution would be able to employ the most eloquent advocate to voice that concern on its behalf and to make a sufficiently persuasive application to the tribunal for the argument to hold water.

Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. I am prepared to accept that there are other points of view on this matter. However, they were not aired in the debate on the Bill because both the Government and the Opposition appeared to agree about them at that time. The point of this Motion is not to address the substance of the arguments one way or the other; the point is to say to the Government, "You never gave us an opportunity to talk about them at all during the Bill".

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I hear what the noble Lord says; I simply do not agree with him. There was such an opportunity, but it was not taken and the matter was not discussed. However, there was an opportunity to consider the rules. They were considered after they were first published in January, although I accept that that was after the Committee stage. There was a consultation period and these matters were examined. I see that the noble Lord is agitated. I do not know whether he wants to intervene a second time.

Lord Kingsland: My Lords, the rules were published only several months after the Bill became law. No public circulation of the draft rules was made until long after the Act was on the statute book.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I know that the vexed question of the letter has been raised. However, with regard to what was circulated, I understand that the noble Lord says that he did not receive a copy, and I do not seek to say that he misleads on that. I understand, too, that the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, says that he did not receive his copy. However, the Government believed that what was circulated was in general currency, and, on its face, it stated that the hearings would be held in public. The original draft of the rule did not have the specificity of the later rule, as set out in Rule 17. But Rule 21, as it was at that time, provided that the hearings would be heard in public.
	Therefore, I hear what the noble Lord says but, simply and frankly, I say that we do not agree. There was a Division. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, did not mislead the House. I understand that there may have been a misunderstanding and, of course, I bitterly regret that such a misunderstanding appears genuinely to have occurred.

Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I have never said that the noble Lord, Lord Bach, misled the House. I took great care in my opening remarks to cast no aspersions on the noble Lord. It appears that the noble Lord, Lord Bach, genuinely believed what he said. I suspect that what happened is that the noble Lord's position was the Government's position until responsibility for these matters shifted from the Treasury to the Lord Chancellor's Department. However, that is merely a speculation. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, was quite splendid throughout the passage of the Bill. He had a very heavy task to fulfil, and I do not believe that any of my noble friends had any complaint about the noble Lord.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, perhaps I may deal with the speculation. There has been no shift in policy. The Government are united in that regard. Her Majesty's Treasury is clear that it had understood that hearings would be held in public. That was consistent with the position at that time. I do not know how often the noble Lord wants to rise but I am happy to sit down again.

Lord Kingsland: My Lords, perhaps I may humbly say to the noble Baroness that having an exchange such as this is a good way in which to clear up the issues between us. When the Bill was originally published by the Government, it reversed a presumption in the Financial Services Act 1986 and the Banking Act 1987 by suggesting that the hearings should be held in public. It was only as a result of the progress report of the Joint Committee of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, in March 1999, that the Government thought again. When the Bill finally came to another place, the original draft had been changed to exclude the proposal that the tribunal hearing should be in public. Therefore, to that extent, the Opposition were perfectly entitled to draw the conclusion that the Government would support private hearings at independent tribunals.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, again, I hear what the noble Lord says, but I am left with saying "no", "no" and thrice "no". The Government have not changed their position. We have thought about the matter long and hard. The position advocated in the draft rules, which we hoped had been circulated properly on 14th March, made clear that we had intended the hearings to be held in public. The rules were redrawn. Rule 21 became Rule 19 and, finally, was expressed as Rule 17. In each manifestation the principle was retained that a public hearing would be preferred, although there was extensive provision for the exercise of judicial discretion by a properly constructed, independent tribunal which would discharge the duties properly.
	My noble friend Lord McIntosh was right. When he signed his statement of compatibility, pursuant to Section 19, it was in contemplation that the Lord Chancellor would bring forward rules in relation to the tribunal. I can assure your Lordships that the Lord Chancellor has no intention of bringing forward rules which would not be compatible with Article 6. The rules that we have brought forward are compatible with Article 6; that was always the intention.
	I say most humbly that I regret very much that there appears to have been a misunderstanding. I accept the genuineness of that misunderstanding although, regrettably, I cannot accept that the Government behaved badly or deserve a bloody nose--I was invited by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, to do so. I am genuinely concerned about the fact that this misunderstanding has occurred. Until this stage, the way in which the scrutiny of the Bill had been undertaken was exemplary--the procedure was working at its best.
	Although I express that regret, I cannot say that there is any reason for noble Lords to think that the Prayer should be supported, and I invite noble Lords not to so pray. If I may respectfully say so, I also invite all noble Lords to consider very carefully the Government's explanation. If noble Lords feel that compatibility with Article 6 would be put at risk, I invite them to vote with their conscience.

Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I shall be extremely telegraphic. One point of detail should be made. I am afraid that I have to say to the noble Baroness that I do not accept that the statement that was made by the honourable Melanie Johnson, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, in November 1999 referred to the draft rules that were quoted. As the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, said, it was clear that the expression "current rules" referred to the rules that were then binding on tribunals. The fact that a set of draft rules had begun to circulate two months previously cannot undermine that interpretation.
	The noble Baroness said in her opening remarks that she was glad that we had an opportunity to debate this matter on a Prayer. I am sad, by contrast, that we have to do so. The right moment to debate this matter is not on a Prayer in your Lordships' House but during the course of the Bill--in the course of the primary legislation. The fact that we are not doing so is as a result of a statement that was made by a member of the Government, which innocently misled your Lordships' House. In those circumstances, I regret the fact that the Government are not prepared to withdraw the regulations and to reconsider the matter. I therefore wish to put the Motion to the House.

On Question, Whether the said Motion shall be agreed to?
	Their Lordships divided: Contents, 129; Not-Contents, 140.

Resolved in the negative, and Motion disagreed to accordingly.

British Overseas Territories Bill [HL]

Report received.

Northern Ireland

Baroness Park of Monmouth: rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what action is envisaged to help victims of paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland, with especial reference to the problems of those who have relocated to the mainland.
	My Lords, the report we are debating, Relocation following Paramilitary Intimidation, was published in March this year. The evidence did not appear until late July. Meanwhile Sinn Fein/IRA has demanded, among other things, that convicted paramilitaries should be allowed to become members of the new Police Partnership throughout Northern Ireland.
	The evidence for what has been happening to ordinary people in Northern Ireland, with the police and the courts powerless to protect them, comes from a number of public bodies, including the RUC, from academics, and from one courageous charity, the Maranatha Community, which receives no official funding, not even from the EU. We have created a plethora of new commissions, in particular a human rights commission, in Northern Ireland, and in the Secretary of State's letter of 1st August on the implementation of the Belfast Agreement we are told that new safeguards for human rights have been introduced and that progress has been made on the normalisation of security. That will be news for both the people and their oppressors.
	Meanwhile--and this has been happening for years and years and has continued unabated since the agreement despite the Prime Minister's assurances of no more violence and despite the pledges in the agreement itself--whole families are regularly expelled from Northern Ireland, either to the mainland or to the South, or they are driven to move within the country under pain of death should they return. This is decided by a knock on the door from the paramilitaries.
	Sinn Fein are doing this to their own people and the loyalists to theirs. This is not inter-sectarian rivalry nor a battle for freedom. It is calculated policy designed to intimidate their own people into accepting that the paramilitaries are the de facto authority which must be obeyed and against which there is no appeal and no defence. The people have to learn that they are the ultimate authority and that no-one may disobey them.
	Once the paramilitaries presented themselves as the guardians; now they are unashamedly the oppressors; and the expulsions and intimidation are party policy, not the work of an occasional bully. Those who have had to flee have been told that they can never return. There is considerable evidence that those who have tried to do so have been severely attacked or killed. Many have been expelled for speaking out, for refusing to donate to a collection or to give protection money. Sometimes for a substantial sum they can buy the chance at least to stay somewhere else in Northern Ireland.
	So what happens? Some night they are told they have an hour or two hours to leave forever, leaving houses, jobs, and taking the children from school. In one instance the father of the family was in hospital dying of cancer. After much negotiation, during which Gerry Adams was appealed to but he refused to help, one son was allowed back to see his father provided he left Northern Ireland again the same day. In another case, the paramilitaries followed the man of the family to England and beat him up severely. The three children were deeply disturbed and the wife committed suicide.
	When families flee there is a mortgage to settle and often, when the Maranatha Community has negotiated permission for a moving van to be sent in, the drivers have been threatened. Even if the family is relocated within Northern Ireland they cannot get to their GP. If they find, on going to the UK, that there is already a family from Northern Ireland which has been relocated in the same area, they fear that their children will meet at school and that they will be identified. Families arrive in Great Britain frightened, penniless and with no immediate support. Housing benefit takes weeks to come through and while jobless, how are they to live? Many have never been out of Northern Ireland in their lives, and they are under continuing threat. Many break down, and some commit suicide. No government agency understands their situation or is specifically responsible for them. Very often they have no relatives or friends in Britain and they are in immediate and desperate need.
	Did any of this stop after the Belfast agreement? The answer is no. The paramilitaries want people to know that they are in charge and so they do not trouble even to wear balaclavas when they are administering a so-called punishment beating or an exile. They want people to know and they know that the victims dare not tell the police and that they can seek no redress. One young man was beaten with hammers and iron bars and sustained two broken hands, a broken nose and ankle and severe bruising. He was interviewed by the police and refused to make a statement. He dared not do so. Others prefer being beaten or shot to being excluded and will actually present themselves for that to be done.
	The people of Northern Ireland are in a desperate situation. Those who dare to confront or publicly disagree with the paramilitaries are at extreme risk, but they dare not, especially under threat of expulsion, co-operate with the police so that the matter may come to court. So the RUC can do nothing. It is a signal example of the wall of silence in the whole community that the Human Rights Commission testified to the committee:
	"To date no such victim and no representative of such a victim had approached the Commission for assistance in bringing a case to court".
	That same Commission testified that it has never conducted any research on the extent of paramilitary intimidation, nor on what steps the Government have taken or should take either to eliminate the activity or to assist the victims.
	What, moreover, has the Committee on the Administration of Justice done? Yet the international convention lays down that everyone has the right to freedom to choose his residence and the right to enter his own country. There has been a conspiracy of silence about what is happening. No victim dared give evidence to the Northern Ireland Committee. According to all the evidence given, the public has been totally silent through fear and intimidation. Yet both the Bloomfield Commission on victims and its Irish counterpart recognise what has been happening. The enforced silence heightens the injustice done to the victims.
	A very pertinent issue raised by the committee was whether the inclusion of local members of the community in the Police Partnership would help. Unfortunately the very people who are needed--the law-abiding citizens who have not been willing to be intimidated, or who have dared to report threats to the RUC--are those who have been driven out, while those whom Sinn Fein/IRA are demanding to have in those partnerships to represent the community are convicted paramilitaries. Thus the last hope of justice for the people would be effectively denied them were the Government to agree to this proposal in yet one more gesture of appeasement.
	A deep anger is growing among the people about the failure of the Government and of the plethora of commissions that have been set up to give them the most basic protection against the paramilitaries, who grow in naked and wicked power from day to day and are unchecked. We have a police force and courts, but nothing can work while the victims dare not accuse their attackers and dare not testify. When will the political leaders of the paramilitaries be told that we shall no longer tolerate this monstrous tyranny?
	They have the power to turn off the tap, and have done so when it suited them. But it seems that we dare not threaten the peace process. What peace process is that? I ask the Government to consider, first, setting up one single body in the UK to which all the exiles can go to have their problems dealt with centrally and sympathetically, and with a mechanism to get all the government agencies to work together, including education, housing, medical care, and so on. That has been done by the Spanish Government for victims of ETA bombings and has been strongly advocated by both the Victim Commission and the recent review of criminal justice. That is the Northern Ireland Committee's main recommendation.
	Secondly, what about holding to account the political leaders representing the paramilitaries for their failure to honour the agreement? Gerry Adams denounces terrorism as unethical. Let him act on that. It is in his power to end the whole thing as far as the Catholic areas are concerned, and he and Martin McGuinness, sit on the IRA Army Council. The loyalist leaders must be equally leaned upon.
	Thirdly, the Government should consider giving serious financial support to the Maranatha Community. Fourthly, they should require the Human Rights Commission to make a public statement directed to the EU and the UN that the people of Northern Ireland are being deprived of their rights by the unlawful acts of the paramilitaries. It is unequivocally terrorism and that should be internationally recognised.
	Can we not use the law to arrest paramilitaries for the possession of guns and instruments of torture? It must be made clear that decommissioning includes the disarming of the paramilitaries on the streets of Northern Ireland and not just the concreting over of one or two bunkers full of old muskets. We cannot leave the issue solely in the hands of the de Chastelain Commission.
	The people of Northern Ireland are weary of the charade that is the peace process. The Government were ready to spend £44 million up to June this year on the sterile procedures of Bloody Sunday, while they do nothing to force the paramilitaries to end their tyranny. They are concerned about plastic baton rounds but not about the guns and iron bars being used to terrorise innocent people, and used not by the wicked police but by the people's own brave defenders, the paramilitary thugs.
	The Government will no doubt say that nothing can be done if the victims will not report intimidation or testify in court. This is true. We have a Protection of the Person and Property Act. We have an excellent police force and dozens of bodies for peace and reconciliation. At the bottom of the heap are the men and women and children whose lives are ruled, as nowhere else in the UK, by brute force, terror, calculated violence and intimidation. They have no redress since, as all the bodies testifying said, they know that if the offence is reported to the police or even to the press, there will be further punishment for them and their families. Sadly anything that gets into the press does so only if the paramilitaries themselves wish to send a public message about their power. They have become more open about punishment because they know they are invulnerable.
	Finally, I want to know what the Northern Ireland Executive, every one of whose ministers and members should be deeply concerned about this issue, mean by their proposed cross-departmental strategy--more joined-up government--and what services are to be offered to victims by April 2002, a commitment they made in March this year. I find it difficult to take seriously the Government's devotion to countering terrorism when I see what is happening in our own country.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, for instigating this short debate today and for the characteristic prescience that she has shown in her sense of timing. I particularly endorse her remarks about the need for a commission for victims and also what she said about the Maranatha Community whose founder, Mr Denis Wrigley, I have known for 25 years. He is one of the most remarkable men I have ever met and has always been a force for good in so many of the things in which he has been involved.
	I am a realistic supporter of the Good Friday agreement; realistic because its fragility and inadequacies have been apparent since the process was first initiated by Mr John Major and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, who is here today, and entrenched by the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, and his three successive Secretaries of State.
	My view of the process is not dissimilar to the view of democracy expressed by Winston Churchill who said that of all the awful options that were available, it was the least worst alternative. In my maiden speech in your Lordships' House four years ago, I questioned the authenticity of a ceasefire, then three years old, which still led to sectarian killings and punishment beatings. That brutality did not end in 1998, as the noble Baroness reminded us today.
	Since the negotiation of the Good Friday agreement in April 1998, there have been more than 60 murders and about 1,000 violent incidents. There is nothing to be starry eyed about. According to the RUC--I am grateful to the Library for providing the figures--between 1998 and 23rd September this year, there were a total of 406 shootings. Republicans have shot 157 people. Loyalists carried out 249 shootings. Loyalists were responsible for 308 assaults and republicans for 174--a total of 482 assaults and an overall total of 888 shootings and assaults.
	Many of those assaults were thought to be so-called punishments by paramilitaries on people within their own communities. Paramilitary attacks on children in Northern Ireland have almost doubled since the Good Friday agreement. Loyalist and republican punishment squads brutalised 47 under 18 year-olds in 1999 and 2000, compared with 25 in the previous two years. Liam Kennedy, Professor of Modern History at Queen's University, Belfast, has documented those details in his admirable report, entitled, "They shoot children, don't they?" He called for the immediate establishment of an anti-intimidation unit and for the scale of punishment beatings to be monitored by the Stormont Assembly and General John de Chastelain's decommissioning group.
	That is very much in sympathy with the arguments that the noble Baroness advanced today. Professor Kennedy's report gives details of how up to 10 masked men--Provisionals--carrying guns and batons, burst into a housing estate in west Belfast. Their target was a 16 year-old boy with a reported IQ of 45. The boy had a troubled history, including severe depression since he had been abused as a child. They forced the boy upstairs to the bathroom and, in the words of his mother:
	"I could hear him screaming from in there. After that they dragged him out into the alleyway. I went into the bathroom and I saw blood everywhere".
	This sort of brutality, along with the abusive treatment of children attempting to reach the Holy Cross school in the Ardoyne, or the blast bomb that recently injured two schoolgirls in north Belfast, should have no place in a civilised world.
	The exact terms of the IRA ceasefire are that it is,
	"a cessation of military operations".
	The IRA does not include, for instance, drugs dealers as military targets but as legitimate fair game. Rough justice and mob rule are not how a fair, just or ordered society should be structured.
	Traditionally, nationalists and republicans have instinctively opposed the institutions of the state in Northern Ireland, seeing them as the vehicles for unionist domination. Unionists and loyalists have traditionally feared engagement with the other side of the community because they believed it paved the way towards a loss of identity, liberties and rights. Failure to decommission weapons has simply reinforced unionist suspicion of the motives and the agenda of republicans. It has led to the withdrawal of David Trimble and his three Unionist Ministers from the Northern Ireland Executive.
	Yesterday's speeches by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness calling on the IRA to,
	"make a ground breaking move on the arms issue",
	must be viewed against that backdrop. So, too, must Sinn Fein's admission that one of the three men recently captured in Colombia was Sinn Fein's Cuban representative.
	In a world where we are pitting all our resources into the fight against terrorism, paramilitaries in Northern Ireland must be aware that international links with groups involved in terror and narcotics will hardly enhance their reputation here or in the United States.
	Although we have heard similar language from Sinn Fein before, there are many changed circumstances. Since 11th September, I have received letters and e-mails from Americans telling me that they have given to Noraid in the past but that they will not do so in the future. Gerry Adams himself pointed to what he described yesterday as "the ethical indefensibility" of terrorism. But as the Irish Times stated in a leading article this morning, "Deeds must now follow words". We have had too many false dawns, too many pages being opened in Irish history, only to see them shut again in our faces.
	This is a moment for taking Gerry Adams at his word. His call for,
	"a ground breaking move on the arms issue",
	and his call for,
	"republicans in Ireland and elsewhere ... to strategically think this issue through",
	should not be greeted with cynicism or a knee-jerk reaction. Undoing centuries of communal hatred and an unswerving commitment to violence was never going to be easy and we must do all we can to debrutalise life in Northern Ireland and to establish just, fair and democratic institutions.
	In this context, since our debates on the Northern Ireland policing legislation, I have been in correspondence with Catholic bishops in Northern Ireland about the constructive role they must play in promoting models of citizenship and duty, not least full participation in law enforcement agencies.
	We have been waiting with patience and understanding to see the first manifestations of the Good Friday peace process. Decommissioning would be the harbinger that would justify that wait. It would deserve to be greeted by unionists with what John Reid said yesterday must not be a "grudging or ungenerous" response. It will be a vindication of David Trimble's initial bravery in being prepared to enter into government with Sinn Fein. His willingness to risk his political future and his subsequent inevitable resignation as First Minister has largely been responsible for whatever momentum there has been in this process and for yesterday's response. We should honour that in this House and hope for his swift return to political office.
	A dog-in-the-manger response to yesterday's speeches would be historically illiterate. For the future, if delivered, decommissioning would transform the situation in every respect--not least in offering hope to those nationalists who continue to suffer at the hands of loyalist terrorists and those loyalists who have suffered at the hands of republican terrorists.
	The whole House is indebted to the noble Baroness for giving us the opportunity to state these obvious things again today.

Lord Fitt: My Lords, many people in Northern Ireland and some libertarians on this side of the water will say that this Unstarred Question is untimely, that nothing should be said that will in any way aggravate the tensions which exist and the hope that will be had after the statement made by Gerry Adams yesterday. I do not propose to go down that road. I do not propose to canonise those who yesterday made the statement that they were going to stop murdering and killing people. I believe that they should have done that many years ago.
	The noble Baroness has drawn attention to paramilitary activities in Northern Ireland. I have lived among them for many years and the reality is that, particularly in the city of Belfast, some areas are controlled by republican paramilitary organisations and other areas are controlled by loyalist paramilitary organisations.
	In North Belfast there is a particular set of circumstances. For many years, North Belfast was an overwhelmingly Unionist constituency. Since then, with the intimidation that has taken place, it has become more marginal. There are loyalists in North Belfast who are trying to drive Catholics out of their area, and the IRA is trying to drive loyalists out of its area. Their intention is that that will eventually succeed in determining the vote in that constituency. There is no doubt about that.
	Yesterday we heard Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness stating that they would call on the IRA to decommission. Indeed, today's Times bears the headline,
	"Mr Adams calls on the IRA to disarm for peace".
	I should have been more impressed if Gerry Adams had said to his paramilitary thugs in the areas which they control, "No more paramilitary beatings. No more paramilitary shootings". That would have had more effect than calling on the IRA not to shoot policemen and soldiers and to set off bombs elsewhere.
	A serious situation exists in Northern Ireland at the moment. Yesterday I bought the Belfast newspaper, the Irish News, and on the front page there was a picture of members of the British Army in full battledress and with battlegear. The first second I saw that photograph I thought that it must have been taken in Afghanistan or Pakistan. But after a second look I saw that it was not; it was in Newington Avenue, North Belfast, a street which I know very well and which is under siege from loyalist paramilitaries.
	The threats and the fears which exist in Northern Ireland today will not disappear as a result of the statement we heard yesterday or by decommissioning. The paramilitary organisations have their areas under their command and control and there is no way that they will give them up. I recall making speech after speech in this House predicting that that would happen. It was obvious to anyone in Northern Ireland that that is what would happen once the paramilitaries were allowed to get a grip.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Park, said that the police, the forces of law and order, could go into those areas and in some way establish law and order to take away the power of the paramilitaries. I should love to think that that was possible, but that is not going to happen. The IRA has stated through Sinn Fein that it will treat the new police service in exactly the same way as it treated the RUC. What does that mean? How did it treat the RUC? It murdered 302 of its members. The new police service, even with the new uniform and under new direction, will be unable to go into republican-controlled areas to try to bring about peace and to install law and order. That is not a possibility.
	The IRA has also called for demilitarisation; for the taking down of Army command posts in South Armagh and in other areas. In other words, it is saying, "Get the British Army off our streets". The British Army will not be able to go into Turf Lodge, into Ballymurphy or into any of the other republican-controlled areas because that will exacerbate the present situation.
	Since watching the news yesterday, I have been resentful of the near canonisation of Sinn Fein because it is now saying to its blood brothers, "We think you should decommission". The facts of life are that President Clinton did not fight the previous election, the Democratic Party lost it; and no one in the American Republican Party has time for terrorists--and that was before 11th September. Over the past few years, thousands, if not millions, of dollars have gone into the coffers of Sinn Fein. Indeed, this Government put forward very controversial legislation which allowed Sinn Fein to continue to obtain financial resources from America. I remember voting against it and predicting what would happen.
	However, after 11th September the world changed for terrorism. It then became clear to members of Sinn Fein and the IRA that if they continued their terrorist campaign, America would clamp down on them: their visas would be revoked; they would not be allowed to travel to America and restrictions would be placed on their funding. That is the reason why the IRA is now talking about decommissioning. It is not because it has had a change of heart about murdering people; it is because it realises that the American scene will be closed down and it will no longer have that support for its actions.
	The noble Baroness has again mentioned the specific case of a young man who was intimidated. Yesterday I had a telephone call from Belfast in which I was told that a young girl working in a particular restaurant in Belfast--it will be identified now that I have brought it to the attention of your Lordships' House--had had a disagreement, in which some harsh words were used, with another girl who was a supporter of the Provisional IRA. Yesterday morning, or the morning before, 10 or 20 women who were IRA supporters went to that girl's house and beat her up. She is now in hospital and will not be able to return to that house. That has happened in the past 24 hours, and such things will continue unless we do something.
	I have never been a supporter of the edict that something must be done; it is too easy to say that. But if the IRA persists in preventing the forces of law and order going into republican areas and instead insists on maintaining control by force of arms against the wishes of the majority of the people in those areas, this situation will continue. One reads articles in this morning's papers about what will happen when the Taliban is defeated in Afghanistan and the tremendous responsibility of building up some kind of civilised society there. There is an uncivilised society in Northern Ireland at the moment and before it gets out of hand the responsibility of this Government is to try to do something about it.
	I bitterly resent the fact that when there is a community clash, such as in the Ardoyne in North Belfast, or in Whitewell Road where Catholics are the victims, the spokesman for the Catholics gives his version and the spokesman for the Protestants will give his. Two of them are convicted murderers. Gerry Kelly is a convicted murderer who was responsible for the first big bomb at the Old Bailey in 1971. Billy Hutchison was convicted of killing two innocent people in Belfast. John White was convicted of killing my personal friend Paddy Wilson. These people expect to be accepted as spokesmen for the communities in Northern Ireland. Once people like that are accepted as bona fide community representatives, there is no hope for a resolution of the Northern Ireland conflict.
	We have heard all day that there is to be a dramatic announcement by Sinn Fein. I note that General de Chastelain flew in from Canada last week. He seems to spend most of his time in Canada. I do not blame him for being unable to come to a resolution of the Northern Ireland conflict. Are we to see how decommissioning is to be brought into effect? Will someone be there, or will we have a statement by General de Chastelain that he has seen the IRA concreting over some of its bunkers? I believe that the people of Northern Ireland, or their representatives, who have been so affected by these arms and ammunition should be there to witness the end of the conflict.
	This Unstarred Question draws attention once again to the totally objectionable situation in Northern Ireland with the paramilitary organisations. I have witnessed it over the past 18 years that I have been a Member of this House and during my 18 years in another place. Rather than talk about it, something must be done. The Government must say to the spokesmen Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness that unless they stop their paramilitary murders, shootings and intimidation, there will be no more concessions to them.

Lord Hylton: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, is always a difficult act to follow. However, in the early 1970s I had some knowledge, through the Belfast Housing Aid Society, of the largest forced movement of population in Europe since 1945. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, for enabling us to debate the forced displacement of people that is still happening within the United Kingdom, despite the Belfast agreement of 1998. I apologise to the noble Baroness for having missed her opening sentences. I acknowledge my appreciation of the words of my noble friend Lord Alton of Liverpool. I believe that he put the issues into the wider context extremely well.
	Punishment beatings, sometimes of a barbaric kind, shootings in the legs and arms and expulsions from Northern Ireland have continued in spite of the agreement. Most cases have arisen in urban housing estates where paramilitary control is tightest and normal policing is least in evidence, as the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, said. Some cases, however, have arisen in rural areas, but in all cases a high proportion of those affected are unemployed, whether permanently or temporarily. The victims include some petty criminals, drug dealers or pushers; others are independent individuals who have failed to bow to paramilitary tyranny.
	Now, as in the 1970s, the first place to look for help and protection is the voluntary organisations. In Belfast these used to be the Housing Aid Society, the Peace People and Corrymeela; now they are more likely to be NIACRO and Bryson House, or Irish Community Care in Liverpool, or the Maranatha Community in Manchester. All these bodies have done valuable work in difficult conditions, preventing homelessness and destitution and struggling to get the statutory authority to cope with urgent human and family needs. The NGOs that I have mentioned, and no doubt others, deserve our thanks and praise.
	The problems are real but their scale is not enormous. One voluntary body in Belfast had 100 cases referred to it in the first nine months of this year; the previous year had been somewhat similar. Sometimes it is possible to prevent punishments or expulsions by negotiating with paramilitary groups. This cannot always be done and some people are obliged to take refuge in England or Scotland.
	The policies of English local authorities towards the displaced people vary greatly. The larger cities are usually the best. Others like Trafford Borough Council refuse all responsibility, even for people who live on the street or sleep in their cars. Some social security offices are helpful and others are not. I have heard of cases where families have had to wait for three months to get child benefit or four weeks to receive income support.
	Housing benefit which is administered by different offices can cause problems, even once accommodation has been secured. Some families or individuals may already, while still in Northern Ireland, have used up their entitlement to crisis loans. When delays occur over benefits, social services are allowed to pay £1.50 per day for any child under three, or £20 to £30 per week for older children, but nothing for the parents.
	We are faced with a situation not foreseen by those who framed the rules, namely, the situation of British citizens violently displaced within their own country. Will the Government consider what extra discretion and flexibility they can provide over the whole range of social benefits for those caught up in this situation?
	Another need is for better medical care and for informed counselling for displaced people with acute emotional or physical problems. Will the Government make use of existing expertise, both in Northern Ireland and, in particular, in London with the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. I ask that because, with few exceptions, it seems that intense trauma, such as often follows punishment attacks, is not well understood at health authority level in the regions of England.
	Problems occur not simply because people have to move from Northern Ireland to Britain, but also for those wishing to return to Northern Ireland. Returns occur to safe areas and sometimes, by agreement with paramilitary groups, to the original areas from which the expulsions took place. If a family were to be housed in England it would often have no points for re-housing by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.
	Severe intimidation, alas, is a fact. A committee of another place has taken copious evidence about expulsions. Until such time as order and tranquillity can be restored, I believe that it is the duty of the Government to provide remedies. Will they give guidance on best practice to local and health authorities and to social security? Will they consider establishing, as suggested by the noble Baroness, a single agency to assist those expelled from their own communities? Such an agency would ensure that those people received promptly the benefits to which they were entitled. Through the community re-integration programme in Northern Ireland it would help those who are willing and able to return.
	It is not too much to ask for a single agency to cut through a great deal of misunderstanding and lack of understanding and to eliminate red tape. With a modest budget it could do much good until the evils of paramilitary power can be ended. I look forward to a helpful reply. I commend the idea of a single agency to your Lordships.

Lord Laird: My Lords, I too am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, initiated the debate today. I was most interested in what the noble Baroness had to say. I also pay tribute to other noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I was particularly struck by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, and by the remarks of my colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, with whom I have shared much territory in Northern Ireland.
	The problem of displaced people as a result of paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland is much larger than has so far been reflected in the Chamber. It is actually massive. It must be addressed before any real peace can be secured. I propose to comment on the movement of populations under threat from paramilitaries inside the province. I am from the Unionist community and so can speak with authority about their problems. But let no one misinterpret my remarks as not recognising that both communities have suffered in this appalling nightmare. It is everyone's basic human right to live in a location of their choice.
	The much publicised problems in the Ardoyne area of North Belfast, already referred to, are an example of the difficulties of paramilitary violence. The causes of that conflict are many and very complicated, but boil down, as indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, to a battle for territory with the prize being control of Belfast City Council. A hard-pressed Unionist community has been subjected to ongoing paramilitary attacks. Its views, as with the views of everyone else in that area, cannot be ignored. Communities under threat of paramilitary violence are fragile and have difficulty in carrying on with their normal communal life. Victims' rights have been considered on an individual context. But we must also consider victims' rights in a community or group context.
	There are about 50 towns and villages in Northern Ireland today where since 1970 as a result of paramilitary activity the Unionist population has fallen. In only one town in the entire province has there been a fall in the nationalist population--Carrickfergus. I shall highlight the problems through one example, that of Londonderry. In 1970 over 13,000 Unionists lived on the west bank of that city. Now there are only 1,000 left. They have long since fled following sectarian murders and sectarian bombing of Unionist businesses. The residual Unionist population left on the west bank is crammed into the Fountain Street estate where they are subject to regular ongoing sectarian attack. School children from the Unionist community are subject to attack when using public transport to travel to and from school. Many parents have to collect their children in taxis from the school gates and accompany them home to ensure their safety, with all the expense that that involves.
	I listened to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, I am always impressed by what the noble Lord says. However, if the movement in the population of Londonderry during that period is not the biggest in western Europe since 1945, I would at least agree with the noble Lord that it is one of the biggest movements of population since that time. Yet today there is still no government programme to address this problem brought about by paramilitary violence.
	An estimated quarter of a million people within the Unionist community have been forced out of various areas of Northern Ireland. This experience explains the concern over the possession of illegal weapons. The Government did not help communities when help was needed. Government measures instead have reinforced the actions of those paramilitaries engaged in the displacement of people. Policies have made the situation worse in education, planning, agriculture and "equality" legislation. That means that the minority communities left in those areas become less and less viable.
	Only in the former Yugoslavia has there been population displacement on a larger scale in Europe. The human rights issues involved in the Balkans have been recognised and steps have been taken to address them. They have not been addressed in Northern Ireland, not even in the Belfast agreement. In Kosovo, the NATO allies agreed that people should be allowed to return to their towns and villages, that there should be a programme of aid to support reconstruction and that arms should be taken out of society. That has not yet happened in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has undertaken little or no work in this important area. That commission has been one of the major disappointments over the past three years. With its rather one-sided agenda, it is perceived by the Unionist community as part of the problem, and certainly not part of the solution.
	We need a programme to support the fragile victim communities and, if that is their choice, to help those forced out of their communities to return. Where people were forced out of areas, school rolls fell and the schools were then closed, making life harder for the communities. We need to look to the reopening of some of those schools.
	Many farms in threatened areas have remained for up to 25 years unworked and unimproved. The rest of the farming community has been able to take advantage of various grant-aided schemes to improve their farms. Those schemes have now been withdrawn. We need a catch-up programme to give displaced farmers returning to their farms access to grants that have been withdrawn.
	The Government's new equality legislation on the supply of goods and services will outlaw the sale of land and property solely within one religious community. But that legislation takes no account of the situation whereby many Unionists cannot, for reasons of safety, bid for land, properties or businesses outside their local community areas. One of the ways in which threatened rural Unionist communities that are at risk can survive and remain viable is by selling and keeping land and property within that local community.
	Schools in the Catholic maintained sector have exemption from fair employment laws because of the confessional qualification required by teachers working in those schools. There is an unanswerable case for exemption to be extended to communities threatened by violence.
	In the 1960s the government undertook a population projection. It would be interesting to compare that with the position today. I know of studies that show the positioning of IRA attacks and bombings which were aimed at ethnic cleansing. The slogan, "Brits Out" has a double meaning; Republicans do not want only the British government out of Northern Ireland, they seem to want to clear the land of all Brits--and because Unionists are Brits, they have been under paramilitary pressure for 30 years.
	A report from the Ulster Scots human rights group, Fowk Richts, proposes a detailed 23-point programme of help for the victim communities. I have already delivered a copy to the Minister. I would urge the Government to look at the report and then to produce a programme for these victimised communities, both as groups and as communities.

Lord Shutt of Greetland: My Lords, I too should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, for introducing the debate. I think that the tenor of the debate has reflected that it really is impossible to talk about Northern Ireland without talking about everything. I congratulate the noble Baroness on her timing. It may be that this is the day when something develops on decommissioning. Indeed, something may have taken place even as we speak.
	If we look over the Belfast agreement, we can see that it contains four headings in reasonably bold black type: decommissioning; police; prisoners; and reconciliation and victims of violence. I think it is important that the word "choreography" is used and that we move forward together on all those fronts.
	In her contribution, the noble Baroness mentioned the plethora of commissions, but went on to suggest that another should be established. Indeed, perhaps there should. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, spoke of citizenship. It is clear that that is another theme which will have to be stressed in Northern Ireland; namely, about people living together. When the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, suggested that some would say that it was untimely to debate this issue tonight, I also agree with him. That is because I believe that it forms a part of the choreography governing what ought to take place in Northern Ireland.
	The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, referred to the voluntary sector. In Northern Ireland one of the best voluntary sectors in these islands is well established. That voluntary sector has kept going regardless of the various regimes that have been put in place. The noble Lord, Lord Laird, referred to the location of choice. I am sure that all noble Lords would agree with him that one ought to be able to live in one's location of choice.
	The specific issue before us is what action we envisage taking to help the victims of paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland, with especial reference to the problems faced by those who have relocated to the mainland. I think that it is important to examine the specifics as well as the generalities of that. Who has had to make a new life somewhere else? Is it the widow and children? Is it someone who has said, "I had better go because I will be next"; or, "They just missed me, so I am off"; or, "I have been given the nod, so I am off"; or, "I fear"? One might regard many such people as the "vanished victims", but they are still suffering.
	Of course we must be careful in this area. The assistant manager of McDonald's in Belfast may well be promoted to become the manager in Bradford or Brighton. That person is hardly a victim. It will be difficult to spot exactly who are the victims, in particular when some of those victims are the victims of fear. We must decide how to define "victim" in those circumstances.
	I noted that a substantial sum of money, a figure in the region of £7 million, has rightly been put aside to be used in Northern Ireland as part of the European Peace II programme. Not long ago an announcement was made in this place that the Tim Parry-Jonathan Ball Trust has been allocated £250,000. Is that the agency that is to be used or, as the noble Baroness has indicated, should an agency be set up to root out the vanished victims who now live over here, across the Irish Sea? I believe that that would require another piece of choreography, to which the noble and learned Lord may well wish to respond at the end of our debate.
	We have reached a time when the situation is developing. We all hope that it will not mean three steps forward and 2.9 steps back, but that it will mean three steps forward and then moving forward on other fronts. Perhaps the issue, especially of those people who have relocated to the mainland, is one that should be considered at this time.

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, first, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lady Park of Monmouth for introducing once again a debate on Northern Ireland. I am also grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part. Looking around the Chamber--I have been in this job for a few years now--I can see many familiar faces. It is good to see that we maintain support in this House. Perhaps I may also welcome the noble and learned Lord the Lord Privy Seal to our affairs. It is a great honour to have the Leader of the House speaking for the Government on behalf of Northern Ireland. I hope that that is a reflection of the huge amount of effort, in my personal opinion sometimes for better or for worse, that the Prime Minister has put into Northern Ireland affairs. We are eternally grateful for that.
	My noble friend rightly drew attention to one of the ugliest and most vicious aspects of life currently in Northern Ireland. This debate takes place against a backdrop of renewed optimism in Northern Ireland. I should like to start by placing on the record my party's view of the statement issued yesterday by Gerry Adams in Belfast. If it leads to a first and subsequent acts of decommissioning, it will be of tremendous significance.
	I hold no brief for Irish republicanism, nor do I in any way forget the acts of utter evil that have been carried out in its name. There are few of us in Northern Ireland who do not know someone who has been touched, or have not been touched themselves, by acts of terror. But anyone who knows the first thing about Irish republicanism history and the republican movement will understand the significance for republicans of what they have said and what I hope very shortly they will do. We on these Benches unreservedly welcome what has been said. At long last we can hope that the Belfast agreement will be implemented in full by all of its participants.
	That will require a number of things to happen. First, it is clear that any act of decommissioning cannot be simply a one-off; otherwise we will be back here in another few months going through the same old ritual. This must be the beginning of a process that leads to all the IRA's arms being credibly and verifiably put beyond use.
	Secondly, we cannot talk here only of IRA or republican arms. The so-called loyalist paramilitaries--the UDA, the UVF and others--have to act too. With IRA decommissioning there can be no possible excuse for the loyalists hanging on to their weapons for a moment longer. A particular responsibility now rests on the loyalist politicians and political leaders to use their influence on their paramilitary forces. In short, we have an opportunity finally to bring about a process leading to what the Belfast agreement describes as,
	"the complete disarmament of all paramilitary organisations".
	But a third thing must now happen too--I know I have a long shopping list; forgive me, but this is reality--and this is where I address myself directly to the comments of my noble friend Lady Park. Decommissioning is of course vital in itself, but it is only one aspect of what the Prime Minister described in his speech in Belfast on 14th May 1998 as the,
	"progressive abandonment and dismantling of paramilitary structures".
	This also had to include, the Prime Minister said,
	"an end to bombings, killings and beatings, claimed or unclaimed; an end to targeting and procurement of weapons; actively directing and promoting violence".
	Even if the IRA decommissioned all their arms and sealed up their bunkers tomorrow, there is still a huge job to do. The Province is awash with weapons. In other words, it means an end to precisely the kind of activity that my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, have set out so graphically today.
	My party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, David Trimble and others have correctly described the Mafia subculture, spawned by 30 years of terrorism, that disfigures so much of life in Northern Ireland. We see so often on loyalist and republican estates the local paramilitary leaders taking on the law and order functions that should legitimately belong to the state. The punishments they mete out are savage and revolting. They include mutilations, beatings and shootings, as described by my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Fitt. Sometimes they even include murder, and frequently the expelling of people either from their homes or from Northern Ireland itself. It is the worst kind of gangsterism, and yet, regrettably, it appears to be on the increase in Northern Ireland rather than in decline. My noble friend did not give statistics, but there are a very large number of such incidents. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, gave us some statistics in his contribution.
	I pay tribute at this stage to the work done by various individuals and the charities and church groups that work with those who have been expelled, helping in many cases to find them alternative accommodation in Great Britain. But these are mostly charity workers; they are not government-led to the best of my knowledge. I also acknowledge the work done on the issue of victims by the former head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, and his commission, which was set up by the Government.
	I agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, in regard to the Government's--perhaps "ineptitude" is too strong a word--priorities. They have set the priority for tackling this menace at too low a level. The overriding priority must be for the Government to tackle this evil and to root it out of society. That means looking again at how legislation may be framed to hit at the financing of paramilitary organisations.
	It also means making absolutely clear that the rule of law will be enforced as rigorously and impartially in all parts of Northern Ireland as we attempt to enforce it on the mainland. We simply cannot tolerate the handing over of estates in Northern Ireland to the paramilitary thugs--they own large parts of Belfast today--and there must be no "no-go" areas for the police. Yet for many people--this is in no way a criticism of the police--that appears to be the reality of life in Northern Ireland today.
	I have raised before my concerns about certain aspects of the new policing arrangements and Her Majesty's Government know them well. I shall not go into them again in detail on this occasion. Suffice it to say that I trust that the new Police Service of Northern Ireland, which officially comes into being next week, will have not only the resources but the ability to get on with its job and to police.
	The IRA wish for convicted terrorists to be allowed to join the police force; they wish for convicted terrorists to be allowed to join the police board; they wish for convicted terrorists to be allowed to join the district policing partnerships (DPPs). It cannot in any context be sensible to have decent, democratic people judged by a bunch of thugs. Being policed by a bunch of thugs is not a runner today in this kingdom, I suggest. I should like encouragement from the noble and learned Lord that he supports that view.
	For too long there has been a perception, not only among paramilitaries but among law-abiding people too, that the political will did not exist to tackle the type of gangsterism to which my noble friend and other noble Lords have referred. There is a widespread belief in Northern Ireland that as long as bombs are not going off other criminal activities will be tolerated. They must not be tolerated. I beg that they will not be tolerated.
	One aspect of the peace process that we are all optimistic about should be to ensure that as soon as possible the "exiles" we have spoken about, the victims, are free and safe to return home should they so desire. Surely their rights are considerably stronger than those of criminals who are looking for amnesty.
	Decommissioning by the IRA and the loyalists will be another step forward towards normality in the Province. Gosh, I hope it happens very soon. However, intimidation, gang warfare, armed robbery and so on will still be rampant. There will still be victims; there will still be people who need help from both the Northern Ireland Assembly and Her Majesty's Government. I sincerely hope that that help will be forthcoming from both.

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, there has not been an ungenerous word spoken today and we are all grateful for that.
	Matters are moving quickly at the moment. I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, that decommissioning is an aspect but not the entire story. He said that there is a huge job to be done. All of us who have had any connection with Northern Ireland, in whatever way--my own, relatively recently--would come to the conclusion that we must give full-hearted and generous continuing support.
	Yesterday, Gerry Adams made a statement which had some optimistic aspects to it. I cannot quarrel with anything that has been said in this debate about the past in Northern Ireland. It would be an indecency to the House to pretend that the criticisms, comments and historical reviews are not accurate; they are. The one point that occurred to me in listening to Gerry Adams's speech was how deeply he referred to South Africa. He spoke of his conversation with Mr Mandela and a telephone conversation as recently as yesterday with President Mbeki. The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, said that there is a vast amount to be done. That is no exaggeration. I hope not to sound complacent--I know that others have suffered and I have not--but elections in South Africa took place only in 1994. It is not a perfect society, but it has been significantly transformed in a very short period of time.
	Again, I do not intend to sound ungracious, but it must be said that we shall all have to make compromises. I recognise fully that it is easy for me to urge others to compromise. I have not been attacked at my place of work; I have not been driven from my home; nor have my four-year-old children been assailed by barbarians in attempting to go to school. It is a matter of indifference to me what religious label such people presume to attach to themselves. It is barbarism whoever commits it.
	I said that matters are moving quickly. The most up-to-date information that I have is that the IRA has recently put out a statement headed, "IRA decommissioning statement". It is signed as usual by P. O'Neill. Perhaps I may read out the last three paragraphs:
	"No one should doubt the difficulties these initiatives cause for us, our volunteers and our supporters. The political process is now on the point of collapse. Such a collapse would certainly, and eventually, put the overall peace process in jeopardy.
	"There is a responsibility upon everyone seriously committed to a just peace to do our best to avoid this. Therefore, in order to save the peace process, we have implemented the scheme agreed with the IICD in August.
	"Our motivation is clear. This unprecedented move"--
	that was accurately prefigured by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran; he said that such a move would be unprecedented--
	"is to save the peace process and to persuade others of our genuine intentions".
	Had this debate been held even six months ago and had I offered anything by way of optimism, I should have rightly been met with scepticism. So there has been some movement. We must wait and see what happens--the noble Baroness is right to say that words will not suffice, and that we need demonstrated actions that can be verified.
	The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, said that some might describe this debate as untimely. It is never untimely to hold a debate about a part of the United Kingdom where our fellow citizens have their legitimate expectation of an ordered and peaceful life wantonly attacked day in, day out. I agree with the noble Lord: it is a timely moment--perhaps even more timely than the noble Baroness thought when she originally tabled the Question.
	A number of questions were asked about specifics and I shall do my best to deal with them. The Bloomfield report was commissioned by this Government in October 1997, and Adam Ingram, the then Minister, set up the Victims Liaison Unit. I know the delicacy of speaking of figures; it seems as though one is approaching these matters on the basis that money will cure, and it cannot. However, the Government have allocated £18¼ million for victims' issues. We have set up a family trauma centre for young people and their families affected by the troubles. The Victim Support Grant Scheme amounted to £225,000. We have donated £3 million of public money to the Northern Ireland Memorial Fund, and a further £2 million will be available over the next two years.
	In addition, there is a small grants scheme, an education and training scheme and an educational bursary pilot scheme. We reviewed the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme to see whether its purposes were being properly carried out. The review reported in June 1999, and the Government announced in July 2000 that the majority of the recommendations had been accepted. We provide £3.1 million of core funding for victims' and survivors' groups, which is administered by the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust. The most recent initiative is funding of some half a million pounds for victims of the troubles who are living in Great Britain.
	I say with respect that all the questions and suggestions put forward need careful consideration. I undertake to bring all of them to the attention of the responsible Secretary of State, my right honourable friend Dr Reid.
	Plainly, in resettling and caring for victims, we must seek to avoid any attempt to delude ourselves into losing sight of the fact that they are innocents and that the true vice is what caused them to move in the first place. I entirely agree with the comment that, if reconciliation can begin, people will need to remake shattered lives in so far as they can. Many never will. As the noble Lord, Lord Laird, said, they will need help in resettlement if that can be brought about. I thank the noble Lord and the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, for their courtesy in alerting me to what they intended to say.
	The Legacy Project was mentioned. It seeks to identify and meet the needs of victims of the troubles who are living in Great Britain, including members of the Armed Forces who served in Northern Ireland and their families, residents from Northern Ireland who have been forced out of their homes, and victims of attacks on the mainland and their families. We find that money spent in the context of voluntary organisations is often more subtly and thoughtfully used in these contexts than it would be through the usual state machinery.
	A number of noble Lords rightly said that intimidation, blackmail, harassment and violence cannot in any circumstances be tolerated. The Organised Crime Task Force brings forward the agencies that are relevant in Northern Ireland--the noble Baroness is right; we must attack the funding by means of which the paramilitary organisations are able to operate.
	I said at the beginning of my remarks that not an ungenerous word was spoken during the debate. I repeat that many of the compromises that will be necessary are not ones that any of your Lordships or I can view with equanimity. I hope that in the end--and this is all that one can reasonably say--the compromises will bring a greater prize.
	I thank the noble Baroness again for introducing this debate and I thank your Lordships for the way in which you have conducted it.

House adjourned at ten minutes past six o'clock.